NEWS

2025 MLR Executive Of The Year: Miami Sharks CEO Milagros Cubelli

Written By Joe Harvey

Milagros Cubelli has been named the inaugural Major League Rugby Executive of the Year award.

The Miami Sharks Chief Executive Officer has received the commendation after being voted for by her peers across the league for her excellent leadership, operational execution, and contributions to the growth of rugby in North America.

Criteria for the award are a combination of numerous factors. 

The success of the team, operational excellence, business growth, community engagement, innovation, and leadership have all come into consideration.

For displaying all these attributes, and plenty more, Cubelli is the inaugural winner of this new award.

“I’m very proud, not only of myself but of the entire Miami Sharks team,” Cubelli told MLR.

“In sports, especially in rugby, any individual award is a result of the team.

“We all work so much. Even the other nominees and everyone involved, it’s a lot of work.

“I spoke to the people that nominated me, and what they said they saw in me was a lot of passion applied in an intelligent way.

“We are a new team at a starting level, so you have to be smart in how you use your resources.

“I have a strong background in entertainment and production, so I think I brought this experience to the Sharks to have a good gameday experience and an interesting, attractive brand.

“I’m proud and very happy. And I love to win.”

The entirety of Cubelli’s life has been surrounded by rugby. 

Her brother, Miami scrum-half Tomas, is regarded as one of Argentina’s finest scrum-halves of the modern era, and their father, Alejandro, has been a stalwart of the sport for decades.

A winner of 17 caps for Los Pumas at hooker in the last century, once his playing days ended, Alejandro turned his attentions to administration.

Over the years, he held multiple positions, ranging from Argentina’s team manager to helping the union rebuild after bankruptcy, and even helped in the move toward professionalism after a fourth-place finish at the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France.

For this reason, the 32-year-old can credit those hours talking around a table with her family with providing her early education of sponsorship, agents, players, and the spectacle of putting on live events.

It is something that she put into action when her own career began.

After completing an undergraduate degree in communication and media studies while on a tennis scholarship at the University of Portland, she threw herself into the world of event production.

Work ranged from hosting the UEFA Champions League, Davis Cup, Coldplay, the Rolling Stones, and, of course, there was a diet of rugby.

Whether it was dealing with the Argentina men’s national team’s sponsorships for the past three Rugby World Cups or the country’s former Super Rugby franchise, the Jaguares, Cubelli was involved with all of it.

Now she channels that lifetime of know-how and her immense passion for rugby into growing the Miami Sharks as their CEO. 

“It’s a very operational job,” Cubelli said. “But at the same time, it’s leading people.

“To walk you through one of my days, it would be connecting with every area (of the team) and always foreseeing what’s coming next.

“I think that’s something that came with my experience in event production, where you’re predicting problems.

“It is reaching out to the rugby staff, making sure they have everything they need to operate, and connecting with the players and understanding where they are at.

“That is something I actually pay a lot of attention to. 

“Something that is really important and where I spend a lot of time is with sponsors.

“That’s one of the big successes of 2025. We grew sponsorship revenue to almost 20 per cent.

“Then, of course, operations and marketing. Pretty much being there for whenever they need me!”

One thing that Miami did in 2025 was add a little bit of color to everything they did.

Their jerseys were a fantastic clash of pink and blue. Their social media celebrated a squad on a collision course with Playoffs rugby. And it was Miami through and through.

That identification of exactly what makes the Sharks unique meant that there was much more to celebrate than a 20 per cent increase in sponsorship revenue.

By the season’s end, the club has doubled its season pass holders at ‘The Tank’, but has seen increased engagement with its Imagine Rugby outreach program in schools throughout the region.

“We identified our strengths, and we found our identity,” Cubelli said. 

“We are Miami, and we know who we are. We know we are fun and colorful. We know we are passionate. We know we have Latin DNA.

“There’s no secret sauce; it is a very hard job growing a sport, but we know our roots, love them, and want to connect with the community.

“That is something we did well, reaching out to the community and trying to bring new audiences to a fun experience at home games.”

Over the regular season and into the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals, there was a connection among the playing group that was difficult to define in Miami.

It was a mixture of Latin passion, American innovation, and collective buy-in that took the team on the field to the postseason for the first time.

The same culture led to a collective buy-in from the squad, a desire to perform on the field for the Sharks, and tangible success on the field in 2025.

For Cubelli, players wanting to wear the jersey every weekend is the greatest reward of all and contributes significantly to the development of the team in the front office, too.

“For me, it’s very pleasing to see (the players wanting to be part of the team),” Cubelli said. 

“It pretty much means that all the time and love that we have put into this is paying off.

“It’s about people wanting to be part of this team from a player’s perspective, but also from a brand and commercial perspective. 

“I don’t want to say it is passion. I think it’s more than passion. There are many people that love this club.

“There’s a professional rugby team in Miami that is doing things well, that is eager to share the fun of this sport with the people in the community. The doors are wide open.”