RWC 2011 could leave out USA.

Ok, you're right that both codes of rugby don't really matter on the american sports scene right now, but union has 70,000 players and 500 plus clubs what does league have 10 clubs. In 10 year rugby will be well on its way to becoming an established sport in america I can't say the same for league.

 

Same old song and dance a league fan who doesn't support rugby based on the class system.

I would love to see a Heinken Cup tournament started to replace the Super 14 with 24 teams selected from the Currie Cup and a new Trans Tasman tournament with NZ 14 provincial sides and the current Aussie Super 14 franchises.

Rugby has the international scene by a country mile and with the exception of Oz has the domestic club scene as well. League will never be able to compete with rugby.

 

I would agree that the axemen have a great owner and are very organized. The league challenge cup that the axemen have started is a great event to sell their sport.

IMO the problem is that rugby union in america just isn't fan oriented. I think that is starting to change now that Melville is in charge.

IMO with rugby union trying to find roots in the US sports market I just don't think there is enough room for both sports in the US. Right now we have the 4 major leagues sports plus the MLS, golf, tennis, motor sports, college sports etc., so IMO we don't have the room.

 

Your bias is hilarious.

It's quite convenient that in your opinion, there's just enough room in the ultra-crowded sports landscape for your version of rugby (while you refuse to call the other version rugby, even though everyone else does).

If a sport is good enough, it can compete for attention. All those sports you listed were there when MLS was starting, and yet it's found room in the landscape and is doing pretty well.

Forgot the number of clubs that each version has, neither has any presence to speak of in the United States.

So the question is which sport can appeal better to the sports landscape. Yes, it's a huge battle to even get the slightest amount of attention.

Like I said, I have nothing against union, except that it doesn't appeal to me. I, like many in the U.S, am an American Football fan. And I think that league is closer to that than union is, and thus has the better chance. But that's just my opinion.

 

I am glad you finally caught on that I hate league and am bias against the sport.

 

I didn't mean to imply that these would be like RL scrums, which are just huddles that open space to start play. You would still be battling for possession. The only part I might change is the initial engage, but both packs would still be exerting force.

 

It is, until it's followed by a whistle to reset the scrum, followed by the scrum breaking down and a penalty being called. I prefer the RL scrum, because since the scrum is essentially uncontested, it doesn't take forever to set up and complete. The players generally just get on with it. Slight hyperbole, but you get the idea.

 

I think you're much to pessimistic. RL is a major sport in England, Australia, and New Zealand. That's a start. The recent World Cup was pretty darn exciting.

You can focus all the money you want on union, but if league is the version that Americans would prefer, then that's what you go with.

Again, maybe it's just me, but to me I enjoy rugby league, but rugby union to me is boring as hell. So it's not a matter of saying union is more popular worldwide, because that doesn't much matter. I mean cricket is reasonably popular in the world, but good luck finding a match on TV here.

 

Pardon me for bumping this old thread, but it was discussing the union vs. league thing and it seemed an appropriate place to post this:

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/sport/nrl/story/0,26799,25248078-5006066,00.html

http://www.jaxaxe.com/NRLUS/tabid/203/Default.aspx

 

You missed (or avoided) MasterShake29's point entirely. It is not a question of which code has the most clubs and the most players and the most money on the World stage; it is not even a question of which code has the most clubs and the most players and the most money inside the USA. Even though union is by far the bigger rugby code inside the USA, that's entirely irrelevant because in spite of the steady growth of rugby union inside the USA over the past thirty or forty years, it is still an entirely marginal and almost unknown sport inside the USA.

Therefore the alleged advantages of union over league that you mention simply are not a factor inside the USA; relatively speaking union and league are almost equally irrelevant inside the USA and to speak of union as being bigger than league inside the USA is both true and irrelevant as to the question of which code has the bigger potential inside the USA as a spectator sport. Yes rugby union is bigger than league inside the USA, but not in any meaningful sense as a spectator sport. Rugby union flourishes, if we can use that word, inside the USA as a participation sport, and as a collection of social clubs and drinking clubs for old college buddies. But as a spectator sport capable of supporting a professional league, it might just as well not exist inside the USA.

Why does league have a bigger potential than union, inside the USA, as a spectator sport? It's bleeding obvious to anyone who isn't a league-hating union bigot. Any American sports fan who grew up watching gridiron (and who never played rugby union, which is to say the vast overwhelming majority of them) finds rugby union, with its scrums and rucks and mauls and lineouts and mysterious penalties and arcane rules and seemingly endless and pointless punting of the ball rather than running the ball, not to mention the endless scrum collapses, to be utterly baffling. The learning curve for American gridiron fans is very high with union. With league, however, it is much, much easier for your typical American sports fan to learn the rules quickly enough to follow what is going on. The six tackle rule translates easily to gridiron's system of downs; the play the ball rule translates easily to gridiron's line of scrimmage, etc. The learning curve is lower for league.

All this makes league an easier "sell" on American TV and to the average American sports fan. It also makes it somewhat easier to convert gridiron players to league than to union. This is certainly no guarantee of success, but it gives league certain advantages in trying to promote itself inside the USA that union lacks. If this new USA rugby league materializes, I don't give it much chance of success (given the state of the economy and the sheer odds against any new league in any sport of succeeding even in a good economy), but it's got a much better chance of attracting and keeping the interest of your average American sports fan than union does. There simply aren't enough Americans yet who have been exposed to rugby union and who understand its subtleties.

Rugby union is the higher learning curve and the harder sell inside the USA than rugby league, as a spectator sport. The very arguments that rugby union people use against rugby league prove this: union is more subtle, more complicated, league is too simple, too unsubtle, etc; league is just smash and run, smash and run, too boring to people who appreciate the "chess match" of rugby union; comparing union to league is like comparing chess to checkers, etc. Those kinds of arguments might sound persuasive to those who grew up with rugby union, especially those who grew up in a rugby union playing culture. But they show exactly why rugby union is at a disadvantage inside the USA, assuming of course rugby league actually attempts to make a go of it on the professional level inside the USA.

The only reason why this hasn't been done before is the historical accidents that have so far kept rugby league isolated in northern England, New South Wales and Queensland, etc, lacking in money or any real coherent plan to market their sport outside of their historical strongholds. If people with money actually try to make a go of promoting professional rugby league in the USA, there's no reason (assuming the owners/investors have the right business plan and the deep pockets to stick it out long term) why they can't have enough modest success to make the USA a reasonably interesting nation within the world of rugby league, similar to the status of the USA within the world of rugby union.

Also most American sports fans don't give a flying fsck about the historical hatreds that pit rugby union and rugby league fans against each other. If given a choice they'll either ignore both codes, or choose the code that has the lower learning curve for them. The only way rugby union gets around this problem is either changing its rules (unlikely) or waiting until most Americans are exposed to rugby union as part of their youth sports experience, which ain't happening any time soon.

 

Well, when the NASL was first starting (1966-1968), IIRC from Clive Toye's book, there was exactly one sporting goods store in the entire eastern half of the USA that sold soccer equipment. When Francisco Marcos arrived in Tampa in 1974 to help start the Tampa Bay Rowdies, there was nowhere to purchase a soccer ball in the entire state of Florida. By 1966, soccer had retreated to a few tiny ethnic strongholds in Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, etc. By 1975, soccer was everywhere.

Now I'm not saying that this new rugby league competition in the USA is going to have anything remotely like the kind of success that the NASL had in terms of spreading the game to new populations, but if they are willing to do the marketing work and the promotion and other legwork in the local community, they can establish a following for the sport that didn't exist prior to their arrival, if the learning curve is not too high. And due to rugby league's connections to rugby union and due to rugby league's similarities to gridiron, it should not be that difficult to recruit new players and fans. After all rugby league itself spread worldwide by recruiting players and fans in countries where similar football codes (ie, rugby union) were already popular. They'll have to spend the time and money to make that happen in the USA, though.

The AMNRL has set up some rugby league grass roots already in some cities on the east coast. Sure a lot of those are expats and such; any attempt to launch this new league on the professional level is also going to have to rely on importing foreign talent, too. There's this false idea that seems to be popular on Aussie rugby league web forums that the NASL failed because it did not have enough native US players, but this is a garbage theory mindlessly accepted by people who haven't studied the history of the NASL very closely themselves and who certainly did not live through it themselves.

I don't think an early reliance on Aussie and English players and coaches will be a problem for this rumored new US rugby league. Relying on imports did not hurt the NASL in those markets where it is successful (female Rowdies fans thought the British accents "cute"), and IMO the learning curve for gridiron players switching codes to rugby league is much lower than the learning curve for Americans learning soccer for the first time back in the 1960's and 70's. So if/once these new rugby league clubs are set up, it shouldn't be too difficult to put down roots. It will take time of course. Stability is important: the new US rugby league should study MLS when deciding on its own long term business plan. Above all they should not fall into the grow-big-quickly-and-spend-money-recklessly habits which killed the NASL.

 

I call BS. My dad can name at least two or three stories in his small Eastern city that sold soccer equipment. It was an ethnic sport, but these people need to buy boots somewhere, and this wasn't like today where you can just go on the internet and buy equipment.

If you took Clive Toye seriously, immigrants in America would be making their own soccer balls out of pig's bladders and borrowing American football jerseys to play games.

Also, rugby league will never take off in America, mostly because there are 12 clubs playing it. A professional league? ******** off.

 

I've lived in the UK all my life and I've never been able to work out the tactics of rugby union. When I watch it, it just seems to consist of big guys holding a ball and running into some other big guys, and then kicking the ball backwards for someone else to have a go at running through some more big blokes. Occasionally they seem to get frusrated and just punt the ball 50 yards forwards, and maybe, now and then, someone will break through and score a try. Other than that, most scoring comes from penalties, which seem completely arbitrary, as if penalty kicks were awarded in football for every yellow card offence.

I'm not wild about rugby league either, but of the two, I'd rather watch rugby league - although for some reason I really can't stand the tone of the whistle used in rugby league, which is about as a random an irritation as you can get.

 

New York's got at least three off the top of my head, and Philly and Boston both have a few stores too.

Also league's selling point, which is that it is more broadly similar to American football, is a terrible selling point. If you haven't noticed, the Arena Football League just bit the dust. People who want to watch football will just watch football. Rugby union offers something substantially more different.

 

League has over a hundred years of history. Arena football was an '80s gimmick with a few "X-TREME" rule changes to adapt to cheaper venues.

And to imply that they're just as removed from standard gridiron is really stretching things.

 

League is similar enough to American football for fans of that to see some similarities, yet different enough to be its own sport. Union doesn't have the first part down.

I agree with RichardL, union confuses me too much, and it seems to devolve into a punting contest with random whistles thrown in.

 

When you come to Melbourne Richard and get down to Skilled, it's not too dissimilar to a premiership stadium. Not that that has anything to do with the rugby debate.

Rugby is a shocking game, on all levels. It's a game better left to the uneducated.

 

You really think Americans are going to give a ******** about South Sydney FC or the George Hotel?

Rugby union's got bucketloads of history (it is the older code after all), yet people aren't trying to sell the game on its history in America. If they do, it's in reference to American history, such as the Olympic gold medals.

And you can trash Arena all you like but it was a professional league for 15 years that got five figure crowds and games on ABC. None of this has ever been achieved by a rugby code in America.

 

Which is of course why rugby has by far the highest percentage of university graduates of any major sport around the world.

 

They branched off from the same game. When they did, rugby did not look like rugby union today. They even had a scrum after every tackle.

 

I'm actually going to give Rugby League a go. I've bought a ticket for the Gold Coast Titans v St George's Dragons match on June 8th at Skilled Park in Robina. I'm sure if I put a bit of effort into wanting a team to win I see it differently. At least I hope so anyway.

I am making a brief detour via Melbourne, but Carlton v St Kilda and Richmond v West Coast on the 12th & 13th will occupy my evenings there, before moving to Adelaide the next day (when the Crows take on North Melbourne).