NRL planning to grow Rugby League in United States of America

How long did tit take to think that one up? During scrum formations or penalty goal attempts? Netball is far more pleasant to the eye.

Good to see the tag team working in unison once more.Like bees to honey.

Fair points WCR and a worthwhile contribution. No one is arguing the tremendous task ahead in getting a foothold in the country.It has been hard from day one.and having a Pro RU comp will make it harder still.That has not prevented the USARL from continuing with their work,securing sponsorship for the Hawks..And staging on off tests is I agree not a long term proposition. Even 12 pro ru teams in a country of 300m,is a drop in the ocean to the population.Yes it may well affect rl but the pro discussion has hardly come out of the blue.And I cannot see the USARL downing tools because it is too hard. Having the USARL established in 2011 after years of instability and very little activity and dissension when David Nui was in charge ,has turned things around somewhat.The code is unified and has spread from the east to the Southern areas of the USA. The people behind the USARL are just as passionate and volunteer of their time and energyThese type of dedicated people are not confined to ru. And now the USA Hawks have qualified for the RLWC of 2017.That in itself will provide some publicity. Money is indeed an issue and makes junior development all that more harder,that is a no brainer.Still they were able to have RLWC qualifying matches against Canada and Jamaica. However teams like Leeds make regular visits to the states and assist in coaching etc. Whether it will happen ,or not News Ltd in their Tv deal,has stated they will be pushing International rl through their world wide resources.Now Fox News (cable) is fairly well watched ,who knows if they will be used. The RLIF receives the full profits engendered form RLWCs,and these monies are channelled into various countries. Just remember over the years rugby league has had many so called insurmountable barriers put in their way,and in many cases have overcome them.I have listed already the countries where this has happened. The USA no doubt offers a big challenge,at least there are people there on site prepared to meet it. One of the barriers I am confronted with as a rl fan ,.on a rl thread is moderation.I am at a wit's end to figure out why ,yet other people from other codes can be handed free reign to provide substance and just plain derision.A fair number of people have suggested to me, this site is pro ru and AFL,and you have to follow the script.

Forget the iron age - league is the netball of football codes, rugby union is basketball. One game stops at every tackle the other is perpetual motion.

Reasoned arguments but in some cases shown to have flaws.Relying on history does that at times.USARlLalready funtioning there. I'd agree with you but then we'd both be wrong Clipper.

That is true, cricket in America is driven by Indian or sub continent expats, but i just remember hearing yesterday the very first cricket international was between Canada and US back in probably about the mid 1800's although most likely it was between expat Englishmen Cricket was never going to work in America, it really is the most English of games and we know what happened between Americans and the English a couple of hundred years ago !!. Meanwhile i think Baseball is just a uptown version of rounders, a game which is still played in the basketball courts of every primary and most likely high school in Australia and just like the first rules of every game, different rules apply at every school.

Thanks for clarifying the numbers Clipper.

I'm not totally shocked by the BBL deal. There are significant numbers of South Asian expats in the States alongiside those from the other major Cricketing nations to drive appeal. Having said that, the BBL has two major markets. The first is our domestic market and the other one is India. Outside of that I suspect there may be a significant fall away in value. I don't know how long League has been active in the States but there are only like 16 or so active clubs. I think only one runs any kind of junior development. And that's the problem. No real development. I know a of guy from North Carolina who alongside some other started a junior Rugby club in what aas virgin territory. In a matter of 3 years they went from 16-17 kids across the ages of 8-18 to running at least one full team in each of those age brackets. The junior club even spawned the senior club. This is being replicated across the US in many locations. But it involvess boots on the ground investing time and many. It's simply something League has never done. And it's only going to become more difficult with the e stablishment of ProRugby. League has always pushed the pro angle (even though it is very much amateur in the US). With ProRugby they lose that angle and potentially talent. Especially if it expands to fit the interest.

Glenn Innes, an interesting few posts, agree with most of what you're saying, reasoned argument, not biased PR spouting nonsense from whatever code wants to beat their chests. Do you think the lower rate of penetration in the Pay TV market is what's holding back further encroachment of US sports. Most of the US and countries you mention have very high Pay TV percentages, but in Australia it is fairly low and therefore most US sports are not readily accessible. Basketball was an example - if Ch. 9 in it's heyday had got behind instead of a declining ch. 10, we could be seeing a greater penetration of that sport.

It seems to me that with the game of rugby already known in the US and reasonably well established that the task for a second form of rugby becomes pretty tough, not impossible, but tough. Having said that, I heard the other day that Cricket Australia has negotiated a TV deal for the BBL in the US, which places it in its top 3 most lucrative overseas TV deals (presumably after India and one of either England or South Africa) - noting that what an Australian sporting organisation might view as lucrative is small beer in the US.

Taking the risk of reigniting the debate but merely bringing the odd international will do practically nothing to grow League in the States. It's a piecemeal strategy at best. Populist at worst. The reason Rugby is expanding across the US is a combination of development programs but most of all it's down to a passionate and untiring groups of volunteers investing their own time (1000s of hours) and money (to the tune of millions) to grow the game. My point is, actual real investment will bring a greater return than staging internationals. It certainly won't overcome some of the rising challenges League will face. One such will be ProRugby that will start play in May. The first season will feature 6 teams but there's already enough interest that it could go to 12 teams pretty quickly.

Hate to throw a bullant into the picnic basket. The Guardian `10th April 2008 "WE are in the worst financial crisis since the great depression says IMF." Not Crosscoder not Glenn Innes.The whole mess reverberated around the world.Financial experts and commentators almost to a man expressed thoughts either similar to or close to those widely held sentiments. And serious social history has a habit of changing with the times: The suffragette movement,the sexual revolution,the influence of religion in Western society and the alternative Increase in Asian society,the attitudes toward alcohol when driving,abolition of the death penalties in some countries.Just to name a few. We can learn from history some good and some bad.If you wish to live and rely on past events as the crux for future events,you will be found wanting. Then you shouldn't generalise by suggesting a country invading or suppressing another will influence it's sports.Some not all,as Japan,and Germany have shown. And as I have stated soccer is making inroads at the expense of their bread and butter culture code baseball..Sort of whiteants the view all cultural codes are unaffected. Not one thing you have written be it on social history,economics,culture should prevent a sport trying to expand albeit on small base. Rugby league has had roadblocks placed before it in the past ,such as France 1941,Italy early 60s,the former Yugoslavia ditto,and has recovered and is growing at grassroots .France by virtue of school access. Why is the code getting into unis in Ukraine and Russia?No history of the code there,nor cultural attachments. I have spelt out my definition of a niche sport once,surely that will suffice. I could not tell you what the lie of the land will be in 10 years let alone 50,and neither could you.I live in the present and work on what I know,not what I predict nor what has happened historically. Anyone can sit back and use the spin argument in attack,but it looks rather hollow when the same person ignores what is happening now ,ATM and derides the very rl organisation and others actually doing the hard yards.

I respect your points Glenn,however they get away from the issue ,which is today,not historical pasts. I have travelled a fair bit in my years both for work and pleasure,I understand the customs,norms and sporting history of more than a handful of countries.It is therefore a nonsense to suggest I don't accept cultural links. My late aunt was a Yank from Boston Mass.I received a fair amount of US education re sport and the country,despite never visiting the place. The US culture we soak up is music,dress,films,beach they are for all generational.Applying to all.Sport in the case of NFL is specific,You either like it or you don't..That is not spin,they are facts. So you ignore the remaining 55% of the population In Fiji.My on hand experience suggests that is BS.I have never denied the importance of culture,stop putting words into my mouth,a sneaky debating trick. A code getting into schools ,clubs and units ,Govt recognition and grants and Eurozone Grants is not spin or PR .Foot soldiers of course bring passion(sheesh sport is about that very aspect),but they can't BS recognition /grants or access to various institutions. It is not a case of making money,its a case of getting a sport established.Judging by what you have espoused,their results have proven more consistent and reliable than your views. Of course you are prepared to prove the Eurozone Grants are all BS,the Govt Grants ditto and the growth in various countries is all made up? There are no Protestant/Calvinistic settler cultures involved in growing the game in Ukraine or Serbia or Lebanon or Jamaica or Czech Republic. =Your last para only reinforces the view, economists also like to project the future ,by using various computer models and still get it wrong.Thus your commentary could be well classified as spin.

You miss my point Glenn completely.My point in response to your initial one,was these USA sports whilst huge and indeed have a following in this and many other countries, it does not translate into a big uptake in participation levels.In conquered countries such as German and Japan,NFL has shown this to be the case. I have never argued against the enormity and monetary power of the NFL,that is a given. Rugby league would not even be a niche sport ,if not for the Storm and SOO.NZ with a population smaller than Sydney is one market,but one of many.Let's not get carried away. Yes there is a tremendous amount of work to be done here ,you won't get an argument from me on that point.By the same token,we live in a globalised economy and sport is like manufacturers' and services' industries,in that none should not just rest on their laurels,but grow their market .Why? Because the Australian market is limited(population wise). The ARLC with funding allocated for grassroots in this country and wanting to grow the game Internationally is a right balance in my book.It won't get it right all the time,but they have at least spelt out their intentions.

Last years Superbowl gad 110 million viewers in the USA one third of the population, no Rugby League broadcast can get anything close to that penetration in Australia, hell the game is a niche sport in half the country and the poor cousin of Rugby Union in New Zealand, There is plenty of work to be done in our own neck of the woods Lets concentrate on our own backyard and help grow and insulate the sport in it's biggest market from the challenges that lay ahead rather than daydream about far away places,

Crosscoder - i Will adress your points one by one, Firstly Soccer is not a new sport in the United States it has always been widely played there.Indeed the USA first made the finals of the World Cup in 1950 (and they only invited sixteen teams back then) so it not a new sport there. Secondly since the USA reformed it's migration laws in 1967 essentially ending their version of the white Australia policy (in the fifties the Eisenhower administration actually rounded up and deported over one million latinos who has crept over the boarder) hispanics have gone from around 1% of the population to over 15% overtaking blacks to become the biggest minority group. That is about fifty million people enough to make any sport big especially a sport that already had healthy participation rates ans a solid infratructure not to mention being the most popular sport on the planet with daylight second, Also what about the American settlers military victory that eventually gave them Texas, would the NFL be dominant in Texas if it was still part of Mexico?.What if the Spanish had held California,what game do you think would be number one there? Migration and demographic patters may eventually hand those places back to soccer.but it was guns that took them away from soccer, OK lets address technology and the world getting smaller.Nothing new going on here, it got smaller with the telegraph wire, it got smaller with wireless, it got smaller with the telephone line. it got smaller with TV it got smaller with the Boeing 747, it got smaller when satelite broadcasts arrived in the seventies, none of that helped Rugby League. Indeed you coold argue a smaller world is a more culturally homogenous world, which is bad news for minority interests,Certainly the arrival of TV and the motorways made England smaller did not help Rugby League,quite the reverse crowds went into steep decline during the sixties and have never really recovered. Didn't help other sports like motorcycle speedway or greyhound racing or boxing all of which used to be really big either,It just made soccer even more dominant.. You keep saying niche sport define your terms ,As popular as what,? hurling,squash, badminton, field hockey, you never state what you mean by this very loose term.how low are you setting the bar?I don't doubt it could be a very minor participant sport in lots of countries along with countless other sports but I doubt it can go further than that. Weatern governments moment of truth was not 2008, they just borrowed/printed more money to keep aggregate demand up to avoid a depression and continued to sink further into debt, they are just delaying the inevitable. Your third last paragraph is bizarre. it shows that US sport is growing,it is not yet dominant like other aspects of popular culture, but it how long will that last.? How popular is NFL in Japan? not very popular, but Japan is not Australia.There are nearly two hundred countries on the planet and Rugby type games are not dwarfed by soccer in Australia the USA New Zealand and Canada, white South Africa,, pretty common cultural theme going on there, white protestant settler cultures no one can deny that..Plus PNG and a few pacific micro nations all od which have strong links with Calvinist churches,These are the places American Football is a threat if the NFL can be bothered chasing small markets, Also interesting you mention Fiji but deny the importance of culture, Fiji is forty five percent Indian indeed they generate nearly all it's wealth, and the Fijian Indians have never had the slightest interest in Rugby either playing it or watching it. All it would take as the Hayne hype showed is a handful of NRL players to crack the NFL and it will be a huge TV sport down here and give it a couple of generations and it might knock Rugby League of it's perch and that is the theme of the thread..We soak up US culture like a sponge and we like rugby type games, the Japanese don't.they like baseball and soccer. just like central Americans ignore American Footballl but like baseball.There is a cultural link whether you want to accept it or bury your head in the sand, I am sticking to serious social history, you are talking pr spin. Foot soldiers bring anecdotal evidence clouded by passion not serious analysis,listen to them and you go broke, it's like asking a bloke who has just started a company if he thinks he is going to make money and whether you should put capital into his new venture.I Happy New Year.

Glenn Innes .Migration no doubt has played its part in the growth in the USA as it has here .But I have to tell you its the white caucasian soccer mums in their SUVs that have taken up the cudgel in large numbers You spelt out the power of the USA and its cultural history in sports.My argument was a non cultural sport has made a decent impact over there at the expense of a bread and butter one,with locals in addition to the migrants influence.To ignore the effect of technology via the medium of TV re the EPL,is ludicrous. The guy on Fox who brought it up was Brian Kilmeade, a white caucasian commentator on that outlet,who has become a huge soccer fan,and he stated so have his friends. You do not accept sports cannot make a niche in a country like the USA or in countries that are not Anglo Saxcon,well I'm sorry to advise you that is incorrect. Your "no prospects beyond that " has shown to be incorrect,Serbia,Spain,Italy,Greece,Czech Republic,Ukraine,Russia,Lebanon,Jamaica have shown that to be a furphy.Rugby league activity has now expaned to Nthn Greece (the Macedonian region) with a 9s tournament.Poland rl now seeking Govt recognition due to the progress made in a short space of time. Western Govts financial moment of truth was in 2008/9 at the time of the GFC,the countries compared to then are in a far better financial position .Ironic you mentioned that some of these Eastern European countries (hardly swimming in money)getting behind rl, I mentioned Fiji to show a deep in built sporting culture can be impacted to varying degrees ,by virtue of TV and development people.It was a personal observation,nothing to do with so called practical or theoretical history you throw up. History doesn't bug me. in the least,in fact rl history is one of my interests as is International rl,In 1941 French rl was decimated,in 2015 they now get the Govt's OK to get into schools. You bang on about Anglo Saxons the only countries where there is a chance and where colonialism has taken root.I have shown that theory to be wrong. You then proceed to mention the USA invading and conquering countries and their sports taking hold,Vietnam,Afghanistan,Iraq have shown that to be false at times.How big is local NFL in Japan and Germany? US sport is not quarantined in this or any country that is nonsense and you know it,we have had Super Bpwls for years,Pay TV for Basketball,NFL,baseball. Niche sport is having clubs ,schools and universities involved,having Govt recognition,at times Grants,spread over states and territories of the countries involved. It is therefore not a mainstream sport. The facts that rl is appearing and growing in non Anglo Countries ,the fact (although you will nort accept it)seems to be bugging you, Research seems to be put into the too hard basket.Sitting back like an armchair general,and making prognostications about old battles,is not out there with the 'foot soldiers" actually involved in the latest ones..I'll take far more notice of them, than someone sounding like a politician generalising,theorising ,with a close mind on the matter..

Cross coder- The answer to your Soccer question is massive migration into the USA from Latin America and high fertility rates among those migrants combined with the enormous financial resources that that sport has at it's disposal.Why are you mentioning Fiji I stated in my post that I think Rugby League has strong growth prospects in Australasia and the South Pacific and no prospects beyond that,and so that is where it should concentrate it's efforts. As for government funding western countries are all up to their eyeballs in debt so I wouldn't bank on that hanging around for too long.The era of governments having the spare coin to subsidise esoteric recreational pursuits is coming to an end, US film music fashion etc is dominant so how long will sport remain quarantined?As for niche sport it all depends what you define as niche.What really bugs you is history backs my argument and deep down you know it. Rodney you are just talking emotive childish drivel.THEY as in a collective. I am not part of "they" I don't watch Rugby Union American Football or Australian Rules Full stop never.I watch some Soccer., I don't think Rugby Union will do anything not because I don't like it (whether I like it means nothing, I don't like rap music but hundreds of millions do,) but because I can see no historical precedent to suggest it will grow and the same is true for Rugby League beyond the South pacific,my tastes are irrelevant. I don't subscribe to the Grim report I would not by shares in it with stolen money. have stated above that I think American Football is the version of Rugby most likely to make an impact in new markets because it has US cultural and Financial power behind it. American Football is not to my tastes but you can't allow your own prejudices to corrupt rational analysis, Also I like Rugby League but lets say I had no interest in it the prospect of it growing would not scare me,If I was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that would scare me, the growth or otherwise of a sport is not going to bother me too much. To me it's mainly a cultural question that relates the link between the Rugby games and Calvinist Religion, something I had never thought about ,until I read a book on the history of New Zealand and have now become very interested in researching this further.I find it fascinating, Instead of having a serious discussion about the history of sport and it's relationship to financial cultural and military developments that have clearly shaped it's evolution you come up with something that sounds like a biblical parable not a reasoned argument, must be the time of the year.

Jacko. If people who prefer the other code wish to utilise the rl thread for their 5 minutes of fame by bagging rl,and then flee like thieves in the night,then I respond accordingly to some of their point scoring shots. I have no problem with the other code per se, played it for 5 years and rl for one.I have attended ru tests and a Barbarian match involving Campese.I in fact enjoy the way the ABs play the game. Oh and nowhere have I suggested ru is not huge internationally by comparison to rl.I research what is happening overseas with rl ,and have corresponded with a couple involved.Also a RL Historian. The coal face is a hell of a lot more reliable than sitting on ones ample backside in an office. What I do have a problem with are union officials who bag rl constantly in a D measuring contest"instead of playing in Campbelltown you can play in Capetown" (Pulver),"Mickey Mouse tournament" (John O'Neill) the FitzSimons(weekly) of this world and the people I mentioned above ,who take delight in offering little in the debate, but offer plenty in the derision stakes.. And before you respond there are the odd couple of rl journos who do likewise,as there are ru journos working in the same vein. Summary: I have been brought up not to accept BS or ignorance govern a debate.This thread is a rl one.I have no compulsion to do likewise in ru threads.Perhaps you could whisper in the ears of those who do.

Are they supposed to?