Will America ever accept Rugby League as a "serious" sport. How can the game win recognition in the USA?

Yes but there is a long road ahead. Recognition has to come via:

1. USA qualifying for and being competitive in World Cup competition.

2. Good TV coverage of RLWC08, NRL, SL and all quality international matches. Including more internationals for the USA particularly at home.

3. Continuation of exhibition matches and education.

4. Funds put towards establishing junior RL at club and school level. The early focus should be directed toward a particular region/state(s) rather than a shotgun approach to the entire country.

5. Attempt to grow the game at all levels regionally rather than establishing a national competition. This could lead to play-offs and a superbowl approach further down the track.

6. Involve more high profile individuals who love the game like Russell Crowe.

7. Establishing a further but related foothold with touch rugby league competitions.

8. Slick marketing.

Who Knows?

 I mean with the right plan of attack it could happen. But i'd say something major needs to be held there, not just 1 trial game. Also promote the AMNRL and any League fan i.e Russell Crowe that gets on TV make mention of league. Things like this will go along way to league becoming popular in USA.

I think among the core supporters it is, its just got to be exposed to the masses.

Years ago people were saying that about soccer in the USA and now look at it. Its pretty big. No where near as massive as NFL... and I wouldnr want it too but you never know.

I think one way is to get some of the NFL teams to be invited to a game and do some coaching clinics... cross coad stuff they sometimes do... and that always brings in the fans. Its ideal I think jsut after the NFL season to do this, some people want to have more Football and so would be quite happy to come along to the AMNRL... need to make sure its in the NFL off season.

Yes good marketing is also a kye... and the right high profile people.

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i've been thinking about this since sunday....

 

firstly get the AMNRL in it's current form on ESPN,stick it on ESPN 2 if they like,christ i've seen the dog frisbee championships on ESPN...rugby league would go down a storm,market it towards NFL fans who miss the action during the summer months.

also announce the formation of a 10 or 12 west coast conference,the powers that be at the AMNRL would chose the location cities,team names and also deals with the local authorities so the teams have a place to play,heres a few names i've come up with.

1. san diago 'seals'
2. los angeles 'titans'  (along with the new york knights don't they sound like they should be the biggest clubs in the world...lol)
3. san francisco 'sharks'
4 .portland 'panthers'
5. seattle 'storm'
6. houston 'hawks'
7. denver 'eagles'
8. las vegas 'vipers'
9. boise 'bulldogs'
10. phoenix ' ??? '

and then the AMNRL sells those 'franchises' in the same way the indian cricket board has just sold the teams for it's new 'rebel cricket comp'..the new AMNRL teams won't draw a fraction of the money some of those indian teams cost,that auction raised more than $700million,but what it will do is put the new teams in the hands of someone with abit of money....i'm sure for example that the LA titans would be a very attractive venture if the owners where guaranteed X amount of hours on national tv (espn).plus LA has no NFL team...for places like boise,that could'nt afford any other sports franchise it would be a step on the ladder for them,it could become a community 'thing'...

 

i've long said that if the americans ever get a hold of RL then england,australia & NZ would be in trouble......lets just hope the prospect of having some competition does'nt hold back the RFL,ARL & RLIF from helping out
 

 

Phoenix Thunder and have the acdc soundtrack playing for startup before the kickoff,,, bring it on.

I just read this one on union news, talking about getting accepted in america, the union all blacks want to have a game againt the irish at new york, hahaha bloody ha, talk about coat tails, we should rename those union guys as the try-hards. Can you imagine what a mess that will look like, yeah they might get a crowd to watch the hakka, of course they will, but once they show the game to mainly overseas toffs working in new york so they dont feel homesick, what will it prove, nothing, except that they will have seen the hakka live, talk about bore the pants off a tree stump. They are desparate to get attention this mob, league will love this because it will bring more attention to our world cup, and once they see ours, no contest. I really think that the people running union are incompetant fools, probably come from the same school as the guy who just lost 8 billion bucks at that bank in france, Talk about insecure, what a rabble. All Blacks, even there only country think they are crap. Not that they will admit to it, they have not got the balls like O'neil the aussie director of union, he just tells it like it is, and why shouldn't he, if league was hemoraging dollars, we would want to know. Not hide it under the table until you go broke. I will say this, and nothing has been said, N.Z union is broke, and need dollars.

Careful Oikee... the reason why Union is percieved as a bigger sport than league around the world is that they don't have fools running the IRB (ARU a different case). They have slick advertising campaigns. I mean you have to be pretty good to be selling that kind $hit to the masses. The fact they they have people convinced about 4 Billion people (and rising) watching the RUWC (IT turns out more like 33 million) then they have to know what they arew doing. Just look at the "we are decended from gods" bile that's being dished out for the 6N at the moment in Europe.

Yes RL is 10000000% better than that other game, but one thing RL has not done in over 100 yers is sell itself... except in Oz, but that is a small market compared to the UK and France (and USA, Russia if you can break it in there).

Spud, one other group of supporters to tarked in the USA... and Europe for that matter... are the Ice hockey fans! Its exactly the kind of sport they could get into as well. I know that the Russians have done this and get some good crowds from the IH fans. They even have a few IH pros that play in teams to keep them "fit"... and that brings them along..... hey! Why not have the AMNRL teams like adopt 1 or two NFL players if they want to be kept fin in the off season. This can also help bring crowds and if they do aggreements to use NGFL facilities andy injuries can also be treated OK. I am not sure if NFL injuries are less or more bad than RL ones, but it shouyld not be that much of an issue I think.

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druzik, i know it looks bleak over there in europe, with the 6 nations going off the dial, but really i am starting to wonder wheather they are doing more harm than good, world cup last year, now vertually 6 nations going hammer and tong, didn,t they just see a world cup? I really wonder if this is going to backfire on the union guys, you can pull the wool over peoples eyes some of the time, but if you try to cover them with wool they soon get irratated. That would be the equiverlant of oz having kiwis png samoa tonga and s.africa over here all the time, you can see where i am coming from, i really think once we forget about union and there crowd sizes we all will be better off, if you add up the crowds for oz world cup they are impressive, and we only got 20 mil living here, but we get to telecast it to the world, and i am not sure if they have struck a deal with america yet, so fingers crossed there, look at it this way, what union is doing is playing nations football, of course they are going to get big crowds, but think about aussie rules, they leave there nations tournament for dead, and they just play local games, talking about america, now this is what i want everyone to do, forget europe, A  guy playing baseball over there just signed a four year deal for 150 million, forget europe, not completely, but super league is growing nicely, if you win wales, and you could,MM will have a great impact there, new clubs starting, there is no killing off super league now, the horse has already bolted, oz is pumping out juniors faster than you can poke a stick at, so plenty of players to fill any shoes the union could buy. So we need usa, and we will win this battle, and florida is the key, and they love league, and want the game, so i say lets give it to them, if they become the league capital, good, and when they get stong, we dont have to worry about players, they will pump them out like a tennis ball machine. What do you think?

And to add another thing about how they are tackling this expansion, someone tell Mr Lewis to stop worrying about france, they dont speak our language, not being derogrative, but really, they dont, now where is the one place where rugby league would really take off, big strong men? People who like english and want to learn our language. GERMANY, wake up you guys over there, for crying out loud, what a rivalry that would be, england v germany, battle for the channel cup. Pull your fingers out. Keep going with your germany push i say, look at brisbane and the mexicans, (melbourne) we have a rivalry going already, we hate each other, doesn't take long, are you guys blind over there, start playing matches against them, think about those games, once germany get strong, .Thats where you need to work on, even looks good on paper.ENGLAND V GERMANY.                                       

BATTLE for the CHANNEL CUP

oikee:

And to add another thing about how they are tackling this expansion, someone tell Mr Lewis to stop worrying about france, they dont speak our language, not being derogrative, but really, they dont, now where is the one place where rugby league would really take off, big strong men? People who like english and want to learn our language. GERMANY, wake up you guys over there, for crying out loud, what a rivalry that would be, england v germany, battle for the channel cup. Pull your fingers out. Keep going with your germany push i say, look at brisbane and the mexicans, (melbourne) we have a rivalry going already, we hate each other, doesn't take long, are you guys blind over there, start playing matches against them, think about those games, once germany get strong, .Thats where you need to work on, even looks good on paper.ENGLAND V GERMANY.                                       

BATTLE for the CHANNEL CUP

Oikee... mate I work WITH the Germany Rugby legaue, go on TouTube (see links below) and see all my germany vids from their matches against the Czechs and Serbians. Germany is small fry at the moment. There are 7-8 teams (Bad Reichenhal, Rhineland, Munich, Nuernberg, Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Rorchbach and German Exiles) that are just starting to get up and running. All, except for the Exiles (who play in the English Midlands division) and Rorchbach (first pure RL team in germany) are all union teams that have players wanting to play something else. Issue is that there are 300 Union teams that have considerable influenec... like everywhere else... and have been threatening to excomunicate RU players and teams if they have anythig to do with RL. Simon Cooper, Leo Burngruber, Uwej Jansen and amny others have been doing wonders getting RLD up to any sort or sporting level. The fact they have basically no money but still have regular internationals, touring teams, a 9's tournament (which I am hoping to play in) and probably a domestic comp this year is fantastic and encourage anyone that is in Europe this year to come and support the games. You can contact me to get details about these games as I am in contact with most of the teams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQXkkb9Px4k#GU5U2spHI_4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yDQtesov3Q&feature=user

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wurauNBkVBE&feature=user

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNG5E8L4pkk&feature=user

Oikee I used to think how great it would be to get a team of this and that up and running... but mate its not that easy, particularly when you have the juggernaughts of soccer, handball and to a much lesser extent Union to contend with. Also I have been looking into setting up RL in Poland and people are just not interested in there... I may need to look OS to expats to do something and then break into the Polish market... I now see whay Greece, Malta and Portugal have gone the way they have.

RE: to you previous post to this one, the RUWC has obviously done something right as I got all three 6N games on the weekend being beamed into my TV through a German network, not sky or BBC or Setanta or Eurosport, but DSF... I was shocked! During the WC they would show only 1/2 the games or so (i.e. only the first half or the second half) and also only showed about 8 games. But looks like that was enopugh to get some sort of interest. It was crazy... somje trully broing games in there. Look you talk about people having the wool pulled over their eyes, I am not sure if your living in Oz or Europe, but in Europe the power that the Rahrah establishemnt has, and the money is mind boggling. These guys truly can sell ice to the Eskimo's! They effectively have controll of the sports media, BBC, CNN int. just give ZERO coverage of the RL. CNN had no hint of the Aus day challenge or anything. I have sent about 4-5 complaints to them over the last 6 months asking why they neglect the game... no answer. All you need to do it stroll through the various web sites and papers in England and Europe to see what its like. The fact that RL survives and thrives in England, France and other places is a testiment to the sport.

Also another things people need to look at that is in RL favour... bit off topic I know... is thatt even though people go and say oh but Rugby League is only on the east coast of Aus and Mid england... yeah, but that's where the people are. over 1/2 the population fo both countries sit in those areas. RU in the UK is in the south which has no where near the people support that RL does. Its why the sport survives there. I thinks its the same with France, the majority of the population is in the south.

France, USA and Russia are the untapped markets for mine. These are the areas that The RLIF need to concentrate on. France, to build up another real strong competition and be a revenue source. Ruissia, would give the eastern European playres somewhere to go, e.g. Serbia, Czech's, Ukranians, Latvians, Estonians. The money is there, the crowds are there and they already have a semi-pro comp. They only need to work on those next couple of steps. And USA... I don't think I need to say more on that one.

So Oikee, just to conclude the thesis... hehe... yes it would be nice to go and have all these nations get up and running, but it takes much time and money and considering that we are all amateur and volenteer based, then you need to be patient.

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Sorry mate, i had no idea what was going on over there, at least i got a response from you, and wish you all the luck, sounds like you need it

, but having just explained to me what you have said, yes i am in oz, australia, and even though rugby union is a bigger brand over here than the league, i would say that this year will change all that, and in a sense this makes a huge difference to the powers to be, yes union is riding high at the moment with the six nations, but i still think they need to be, they have already been taken steps for mine,

that is i think they know the crunch is coming from the rugby league guys, you can tell by the increased coverage the papers are giving the sport, and as you say, there is no league in the papers, why? well because there has not been any on at the moment, its only getting the season started now, having said this, we now have a full 10 months of league getting underway, and we both have some of the best talent you will ever see, both in super league and aussie league, and to top it off, the world cup, all this will give the game greater publicity and support, the more a nation fights it the sillier they look, america is coming along nicely, there is no stoping them, once they get into a couple of games against russian and pacific they will be in a better position, and they will start getting attention, and they love the attention.

Wish i was over there to help you fight the fight, but like i have said, it will get easier after this year, are you german , my wife lived there for awhile with some friends and speaks the language pretty well. To cheer you up, if you get the coverage of the world cup i have added some more slang on the site for you to read, most of it is used by ray warren and he is doing the games this year, i just read the news today, maybe they where looking at my blog ,

Gut mit sie zu sprechen, viel gluck - auf wiedersehen.

Yeh, look I think Rugby League needs to focus on 5 countries ATM. USA, Russia, France, Wales and NZ. NZ you ask? well i wouldn't have thought i'd be saying that a couple of weeks ago, but what i hear (mainly from Kiwileaguefan) is that league is really struggling there and needs to be focused on. France and Wales because they both have franchises in the Super/National League system, which can only help IMO. If Catalans can crack the top 6 and Crusaders can crack SL i predict big things from these 2 countries. USA and Russia because they both strong established domestic comps tyhat with some promotion and work could turn big.

Does this mean stop development in the likes of lebanon, pacific islands, south africa, europe etc? NO. These areas should also be progressed slowly and efficiently with the little money RL has available. one sugestion i could think of would be to try and get promising youngsters from these smaller areas to get involved in the National League(England), Premier League/Jersey Flegg(Australia), Elite Division(France), AMNRL(USA) etc. I mean think of the benifits a young say italian could get from playiong a few national league 1/2 games, or a talented lebanese player getting involved in the french division. The skills and talent they would pick up in these comps would give them something to improve their home domestic comps.

So I guess what im saying is sensible use of our money and resources could go a long, long way to making RL a truely international game.

oikee, as for your statement of Union being bigger than league in australia, there is no way! Maybe 10 mauybe 5 years ago yes but now most certainly not. During the last few year years league has "sold" itself well so to speak with the promotion in Melbounre with them now attracting 5000 more to a game than they did 3 years ago. Also giving QLD another team was a master stroke, even 1 or 2 more would still work IMO. Perth are looking at a team in SG Ball next year with promotion steps through to the QLD cup, then the ultimate goal NRL.

Howver Whilst this was happening, ARU was self imploding and the status of RU is worse than ever in Australia. I'd hate to be m,ean but i can't say i feel sorry for them. After all they did and continue to bring us a sport which i like to call "boring, glorified $hit"

Also next time anyone has a drink, give a toast to druzik. From what he says, he's doing his best to promote the world's best game where there isn't much interest, and if RL does truelly oneday become an international game we can thank people like him who are working all over the world to bring RL to the people. Not to single you out but you were a good example. Touchy Emotional Speech Over. lol

Hey jimmy, no worries mate, you probably did not read my last post before you sent yours, any way, you read my post before and if you read it right, you would have seen i said brand wallaby brand name, now you and me know that league is the biggest sport here in oz, and after this year, the kangaroo brand name, that means selling of the merchandise will be bigger than the wallibies, Kangaroos beat the *** out of wallibies, everyone knows this, hehe

And everything you have said is right, wales will benifit from league starting in the super league, and with MMagic, this will explode the interest, as for Lebanon, look to tell the truth on this one jim, i think oz has done more than its fair share on this point, they have got a comp going there and also, they are a fantastic team, they have got talent to burn, you only have to look at the players here in australia to see that, and if the tigers had won that last game at the end of the year, it would have been robbie farrah with the dally m award, not thurston, Lebanon are going to be a major force in future world cups, and tell me one other arab country who could claim anything like this, they are well ahead of the game, and clever players!!!

I just wish all us aussies could go over to germany and show them what league is all about, but they like you say, do have Dan, i think thats his name, "Druzik" Who will get his rewards, soon i hope.

Oh yeah, i forgot to mention New Zealand, yes at the moment they are a little down, but thats only because they have had a few management problems and have to compete against all blacks, but now here is the light at the tunnel, the warriors are big here in oz, bigger than what people think, everyone wants to be a warrior, well at least i do, and they have so much support here, steve price is a legend now and we all love tate, and the winger vartuvei,,,, well, i tell you even my mother could love this guy, he is arwesome,  along with matty utai from the dogs, these are the players i like to watch, they have just got something special about them, talwaki, not sure of the spelling is another from the tigers, to tell the truth the talent with n.z and samoa and tonga, is something to crowe about,

Now they are getting the best coach in the world behind them, they should do well, if they dont, it still does not mean they are falling behind, it just means they are rebuilding, lets hope the aussies dont get beaten, heads will roll i tell you, hehe   i got some more slang to post, catch you later.