NRL should follow AFL's American experiment

I hate to tell you this Rugby league but the reason you can't spread the game to America is because the sport sucks. Australian football is a awesome sport, the best & most exciting game in the world, so it's easy product to sell. And Rugby league is a similar game to American football so their going to pick their game, where as Australian football is a totally different game so we won't be competing with American football.

Excuses !!! Ian .You suggesting the NRL was set up to promote internationals? The RLIF and RLEF and indeed the ARL are the ones involved.They are reasons In fact . The excuses come down to funding,which was not available in any quantitiy. I trust you have an idea o the work of the RLEF in particular. You do understand the nRL clubs have PNG players cropping up in the lower grades,indeed many from the PI. There is growing development in the US,even allowing for that ,clubs neeed to get younger players and not the Folau debacles,where a senior player has not even smelt the pill. NRL scouts and the agents are everywhere in the UK,France ,PNG and the PI and NZ I repeat the salary cap has nought to do with internationalism,so your proposal would fall over at the first hurdle. The salary cap and or grants are utilised to fund the NRL team,the u20,the 2nd division side .The ARLC may well set funds aside (and I am sure they will) to the ARLC for international development.In effect your proposal could not be done tomorrow.Wish it were that easy. There will be in the next few months a strategic plan ,spelt out by the ARLC and the Chairman is a former international player ,and has stated the importance of that aspect. The admin of the salary cap is one thing,international development is a whole new ball game.ATM in the US development is left to local clubs. Rugby league has had French players,even a couple of Russian players,and a few Yanks over the last few years to get a taste of NRL training and the game at lower levels,in addition to PI players.Serbian,russian,French,South African and even German players have had a taste of rl in the UK. What the code should be doing is looking for potential players in the southern states of Australia.Not everyone is built to kick or play AFL,but the ability to run with the ball and enjoy full body contact. If I were in charge of the ARLC,I would be establishing rl academies in Perth,Adelaide and Victoria,in addition to any that may be there ATM. Rugby league talent scouts look for potential footballers before they look at athletes eg Benji Marshall.A combination of both is a bonus.Darren Clark was an athlete,but as a footballer he didn''t make it. James Magnussen is a top swimmer and a former Port Macquarie junior footballer.He perhaps could make it. I am fully supportive of international growth and getting overseas players to taste top line rugby league,but the financial cake is yet to be carved up.

Once again VN, the beer comment was said back to me with tongue firmly planted in cheek when... believe it or not I attempted to sell the fast paced element of the game. One more time, trying to sell speed in sport to the Americans is pointless, they don’t have a thirst for it like we seem to have. If you don’t understand this, watch a game their national football code which is an hour long game that’s played over a duration of three (+) hours. I also never said they didn’t enjoy and appreciate viewing RL. I’ve smashed them with clips of origins and magical GI, Barba and Thurston moments and they’ve been impressed but they have their own a football code that produces exciting games played amongst an electric atmosphere with examples of incredibly skilful and athletic fetes on a weekly basis. American’s know American Football. It’s now their national game and sits deep within their cultural identity. The similarities between our games have been rightly pointed out above and the US market is already being well served by a football code that’s effectively captivated the entire population. I’m not saying that Americans don’t or won’t appreciate RL but they won’t (on mass) become devoted followers of the game. Their thirst for a football and contact code is well and truly being quenched by a game that is part of who they are. (Like RL on mass is part of QLD/NSW and AFL is part of VIC etc.). I’ve also made a comment below about culture which spells out what RL or any other foreign sport is up against if their trying to make an impact on the US sporting landscape. I love the Rugby League product as much as the next League fan out there and will sell it to anyone who wants to listen but you have to be realistic about how successful the game can be, especially in a market like the US. Otherwise you’ll be simply setting yourself up for disappointment. That’s excellent that your international friends have taken a shine to RL. Again I haven’t doubted the games ability to impress outsiders. But if you want to talk about ‘blowing away’ sports fans, go and watch a live game of NFL, NHL or NBA. Sport is entertainment and nobody does it better than the yanks. I love my NRL more than any of the big American sports but I doubt RL’s ability to wow any of my American friends with a visit to Toyota Park to watch my beloved Sharks go around. I’m sure they’d enjoy the experience but when you consider what’s available to them where they come from you can’t compare. Their brains have been flushed with American Football and where they come from their national football code is played at state of the art stadiums (for most teams) in front of 80 odd thousand spectators- week in week out throughout their regular season. In Sydney we can’t crack 40,000 for a finals game against (arguably) the two form teams of the competition. Clearly we should be focusing on promoting the game here as opposed to a market that’s big but incredibly difficult to crack. Heck, we’re struggling to crack markets within our own land that provide the game with some level of exposure let alone a place where Rugby League is literally unknown (to most) and unexposed. Unfortunately there aren’t enough people in Australia, let alone people in QLD and NSW like yourself and I who can get in the ears of enough American’s for RL to make an impact in the States. All I suggest is being realistic about the games growth and potential in a market like the US. You have to look past what we think about it and start to recognise their culture and what’s already well and truly established there. If you want to keep looking at the games potential in the States through the rose coloured glasses that don’t take the entire situation into account then that’s your decision, but the reality is you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed.

yes but that's like saying theirs a lacrosse comp in Melbourne. also if its in the USA is it still called the AFL

Yes as they would be if they went to the FA cUp or Super Bowl or AFL GF etc - its easy to get excited at watching the best but replicating it in your own country often is difficult eg RL in NZ...

He's also flat out wrong about there not being US AFL competitions ... one of the kids at the LA combine was from the Orange County Bombers.

Hamish.. dude, whats being said is that the market in the US is so big, that even niche sports are huge by most standards. Same for music....people say "just find your niche in the US and you will be set for a good career".

Crosscoder, "The problem being the Sydney and Brisbane media is only interested in the local rugby league scene ,and not what is happening in virgin areas. It is not the remit of the NRL or ARLC to market internationalism," Those are excuses, not reasons. My proposal can be done tomorrow - the administration of the salary cap is definitely within the remit of the NRL.

You're kidding me, right? lol ...cant get to the fridge for a beer....sounds like an excuse (if its even real) of something else. Maybe you are not good at selling. I just showed them a decent game of league. The All stars game, and Origin was particularly effective. Mate, I have american friends too, and I have south american friends as well, Uruguay and Brazil. They all like rugby league. Several demanded I take them to a game when they stayed in qld last year, and this. They were blown away.

I’m not saying that they have an issue with fast sport TC. NASCAR is the biggest ‘sport’ in the country and they’re not stuck in third gear going around those ovals. My point is that they don’t seem to have the issues with slower sports that we do. To say a sport will catch on in the US because of its fast is void. Slow/Fast... they don’t care.

Rob9 Both Basketball and Ice Hockey are fast sports (comparatively speaking). I'm not sure if it's about whether the sport is fast or slow. TC

Yes, he is doing all that and more. Anyone who has seen pictures of the giant 16 year old will be left in no doubt that this kid can do whatever the hell he wants to do. TC

The Bush. When I first had a look at girdiron the first question I asked somebody was when was Rugby invented "not what a great spectacle I was watching" ,just to check or reassure myself that they gridiron werent first.

or buy them full strength beer

I tend to agree with this. People need to understand that sport makes up a very important part of a nation’s cultural identity. To suggest that it’s challenging to have an impact on or manipulate a nation’s culture is a huge understatement. Making it even harder for RL to have an impact on the sporting landscape in the States is the fact that the US is a dominant culture that isn’t easily influenced by outside forces.

They are both games dictated by a certain number of turns with the ball - 4 downs v 5 tackles. The similarities are so numerous (restarts via deep kick offs etc). Of course when you consider the fact that they both developed from Rugby Union/Rugby and that they are both professional sports that have gone through a number of changes to improve themselves as such, it is not surprising.

No matter how you look at it, its going about international development of any sport the hard and expensive way. I understand all the logic behind the AFL's move and support any efforts to grow the game, but without grass roots competitions in the States themselves growing, its tokenism. Two players who costs a fortune to try out and transport here, may result. As been proven with Folau its take the big blokes a long time to understand the game. The lack of profile of AFL or NRL in the US as even a second string mainstream sport will always mean this will fall into the category worth a shot but maintaining the program is cost prohibitive.

To think it will be anymore than a niche sport in the US is just dreaming - they have 3 footy codes already...

Mooted that St Kilda playing Swans on Anzac day in Wellington next year??

Yes there are only so many Slaters and Thurstons. Remember the sham Manfred Moore playing for Newtown. The NRL has looked at NZ, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and AFL (Adrian Barich) so whats the harm with the US.