How did the NFL allow this to happen? It seems odd that they would let a completely different sport play a game during one of the NFL's games.
The NFL itself had nothing to do with it. It was organized by the Wolfhounds and the Bengals PR department, from what I heard. Plus, it was only an preseason game for the Bengals, so I'm sure the NFL folks could have cared less.
They could care less. MLB, the NBA, and the NHL can't touch the NFL in popularity right now. I doubt they worry about rugby much.
According to you. Personally, I can't see how anyone versed in the rules and strategy of American football can find it boring, but then again I hate bananas, and most people can't see how someone can hate bananas. [SIZE=-1]Different strokes for different folks.[/SIZE]
I learned about rugby from the internet, watched a 1999 match between Australia and New Zealand that really impressed me. Since then, I've learned the rules decently well and watched quite a few other games. I like the fast pace of rugby and am morbidly fascinated by its strong operational similarity to armored warfare. You create a hole in the opposing line, pound it a bit, then try for a quick envelopment. American football is a sport that I like and that I appreciate for its measured pace and memorized complexity. But some of me hates Walter Camp for changing the rules of rugby to invent it because it would be so enjoyable if the USA actually had a real international sport that it cared about.
I think the Jacksonville Axe (JaxAxe) did this too during a Jacksonville Jaguars game. Now they are a rugby league club but to be fair 99 percent of Americans wouldn't know the difference.
I understand the NFL just fine, but I've been to an NFL game live. It's boring. The amount of TV breaks are unreal. I would have fallen asleep if I didn't have my iPod. You just can't sit through 3.5 hours of football with all those commercial breaks and not be bored.
I'm not counting the TV breaks as part of the game. Of course the TV breaks are boring. Funny -- when I've been to NFL games in person, I don't even notice the TV breaks like I do when I'm watching on TV.
Interestingly, most of the people I've known who were into playing rugby were women. I think it appeals to ladies who like more direct, physical competition than they get with more regular womens sports, but would not be interested in the super organized structure of American football. Since there is no rugby culture here, except in Berkeley, there isn't any sense of it being a game for men, as there is with American football (and no doubt rugby in the countries where it's popular). This doesn't speak to it as a spectator sport, but there isn't much to speak of. Personally, I find it interesting to watch for a little while, but I don't understand enough of the nuance to find the play varied enough. I would watch the World Cup if I could though. I thought the national anthems were brilliant last time - some never heard South Pacific anthem going on while the camera would go way up to some 6'5 powerhouse, and then drop down to a 5'7 guy with a completely square head.
Frankly I don't believe you. You can see the players and referees standing around with their hands on their hips waiting for the TV timeout to end.
I agree with you. I think the tv timeouts make it very frustrating to watch American football in person, while on tv, you can simply switch to a different game.
Interesting story here--Glendale Opens First Rugby Stadium in Country. Glendale is a small suburban enclave completely surrounded by Denver. Up until now, it's been known for its stripper bars. (The biggest one, Shotgun Willies, is known as the Glendale Ballet to many people.) Anyway, the town got committed enough to Rugby to build a 5,000 seat stadium. Does this mean a sudden groundswell of support for Rugby? I don't know.
I've been to several several games in person. All college. I'll go to my first pro game in a few weeks. This past weekend I saw the North Carolina Tarholes lose to East Carolina in person and it ended 34-31 on the last kick of the game. You talk to your friends for a minute doing a slight analysis of what's going on or you sit down for a breather (cause you have to stand most of the game in some parts of a stadium). I went to NC State and sitting in the fan section we would usually bounce cheers to the other side of the stadium during breaks. If you're into the game, it's not boring, and the breaks breeze past.
For me it's the opposite. When I'm into the game, I get frustrated that it has to stop for commercials I can't see.
You'd be surprised at what we get up to in our spare time here... I remember years ago...(I dont want to age myself) when I first moved to LA...I was invited to go see the Long Beach Rugby play... I thought I would walk into a small club and watch a bunch of dudes pass the ball around and they would invite me to play... No chance...they were already years ahead of what I had thought...and they were huge dudes...needless to say...I didnt play.... USA played well against England the other day....well done... On another note... Americans are getting into cricket...also...not much to talk about but give it some time... Simon Allen World Soccer Wrap
No disrespect, but "a lot of Indians moving here" does not equal "Americans getting into cricket". Trust me, I looked into a league of around 20 or so teams, and the number of natives was maybe 1 total from all of them tops. I'm sure there are a lot of people in England for example that like American football. If they're all American ex-pats though that doesn't mean the English are taking a liking to the sport. Is that really any different though than kicking the balls out of bounds and play does not start til a minute later or waiting on a match official to decide if a guy scored or waiting for a player either legitimately injured or faking it to run off time? At least in the case of football when those things happen, they go to commercial and the clock is stopped, as opposed to us being robbed of watching play cause the clock is still running in soccer's and rugby's case. How much time in a rugby game of 80 minutes is actually of rugby (and the same for soccer of 90 minutes)? Has a study ever been done on that, to see how much stoppage of play there is? Yes, we don't like commercials and they stop the flow of the game. However, we live in a capitalist society and $$$ makes the world go round. Commercials allow me to watch my sports on free TV as I will never buy a pay per view ever regardless of the sport, period. It's sort of like politicians. Yes, it'd be easier and more fun to just lock them in a jail for the good of society, but they're a necessary evil.
20 years ago, the vast majority of Rugby playing americans played for the first time in college. I would be pretty surprised if that has changed. I picked up Rugby in college because I liked drinking and couldn't make the soccer team. That was a familiar story for most of my teammates. The backs were all ex-soccer players and the forwards ex-football.
I'm married to a Welsh woman, so rugby has been kind of transfused into my blood. My father-in-law has explained enough rules so that I can understand what's going on out there. When I lived in Greece a friend talked me into going out for the local rugby club even though I had never played. I had a blast. I loved the contact, the cameraderie, the very british notions of sportsmanship. Unfortunately I had to stop playing after I ripped my acl to shreds playing soccer (at the Olympiakos stadium, no less). Last year I went to a charity match hosted by the New Zealand Embassy here in Washington. It was a team of Kiwis collected from all over the U.S. and one of the better teams on the East coast. I was expecting the Kiwis to smoke the American team, but in fact the Americans won pretty handily. I don't think rugby will ever get to be as popular as soccer here in the U.S., but it is a big country, and there is no reason that more Americans can't get into it. There have got to be more Dan Lyles running around out there.
Oh yes, it is different. For starter, when the ball goes out of play it doesn't take 30 seconds to put it back into play, let alone 1 minute. It's actually a few seconds, unless there's an injury on the field. Which brings me to the following: when there's a significant break to the game (at least in soccer), the 4th referee stop the watch. That's why you have "injury time" after the 90 minutes are up.
Every game I've watched in the Rugby World Cup disproves that. The next time I watch a soccer game on TV I'll have a stopwatch and I'll pm my result to you. Some games should have 6-8 minutes of stoppage time added and they get maybe 3.
Big crucial difference. Football and rugby take an hour and a half to play. American Football takes 3 and a half hours. There's a LOT more standing around in football. You've got those TV timeouts after a change of possession and at the start of a quarter, and you have a 45 second play clock.
Of course your result will be much different from the official "added time", because surely you will stop your watch whenever the referee whistle to stop the game momentarily.
I like the DVR approach to this. A 3 1/2 hour NLF game only takes 45 minutes to watch if you only want to watch the plays. A 105 minute soccer match takes about 80 minutes if you fast forward the deadball time and halftime. Not sure about Rugby.