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More News on a Professional American League

Wow. Awesome.

Would love the ABs to play a US team with an Adrian Peterson-type athlete (one day). :D
 
They should really talk to Mark Cuban. He's a billionaire, and used to play at Indiana University.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
 
In my opinion that is a no brainer. I can't see the future of professional rugby lying in any other place than in North America. The logistics of playing with the Celtic nations would just never work while the standard of Super Rugby would just not be realistic right now for North America.

It has to be, right now, a domestic professional league. Shame we haven't heard anything more. It said on the last article that the writer has broken up the whole interview and it shall be installed in chunks.

Either way I would love to see this happening soon!
 
Theoretically 5-10 years from now we could have 24 hours of televised rugby with super rugby in the AM & afternoon then an east coast game on the night and a west coast game in the small hours. I can't see anyway this would be a negative.</SPAN>
 
powerfulduck said:
Theoretically 5-10 years from now we could have 24 hours of televised rugby with super rugby in the AM & afternoon then an east coast game on the night and a west coast game in the small hours. I can't see anyway this would be a negative.
Click to expand...

I need to put some thought into this. I get married in May, maybe I should file for a divorce now!
 
Pro rugby in the US would need a ton of support from TV networks to get off the ground. NBC Sports, and other large networks could really do a lot for viewership, which would bring in the necessary cash for players. Anybody familiar with MLS, may agree that the model they set could be followed. Slow growth, and smart marketing is the key.
 
I wouldn't get too optimistic, as one only needs to look at the failed professional football leagues getting set up here every year with millions of dollars invested only to fail almost immediately. I am excited for this, but I don't want to set myself up for disappointment.
 
out of interest, can any of you guys tell me do any sports in the US compete on a State level and are there existing state rivalries? if not would a franchise system based on states similar to the irish province system not work better? Certainly i would have thought it would help generate support for these teams.
 
No professional sports compete at state or provincial level. A franchise system based on provinces or states would not work well in the US or Canada. Mind you our CRC is organized along regional lines but I don't think that necessarily translates over to a professional outfit.
 
powerfulduck said:
out of interest, can any of you guys tell me do any sports in the US compete on a State level and are there existing state rivalries? if not would a franchise system based on states similar to the irish province system not work better? Certainly i would have thought it would help generate support for these teams.
Click to expand...

Canadian_Rugger said:
No professional sports compete at state or provincial level. A franchise system based on provinces or states would not work well in the US or Canada. Mind you our CRC is organized along regional lines but I don't think that necessarily translates over to a professional outfit.
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Yeah, asked and answered. I can't think of even an amateur sport that competes on a "State v State" basis.

The nearest I can think of is the NCAA where State Universities compete but the organisation is very complex involving Divisions, Sub-Divisions, Conferences and Sub-Conferences all over the USA. People who follow College Football will probably be familiar with names like Penn State, Purdue and Ohio State (all members of the "Big 10" conference)......

Big10.bmp


.....but this is hardly a State v State situation with some states having more than one participant, (e.g. Indiana, Illinois and Michigan have two each in the Big 10)
 
Canadian_Rugger said:
No professional sports compete at state or provincial level. A franchise system based on provinces or states would not work well in the US or Canada. Mind you our CRC is organized along regional lines but I don't think that necessarily translates over to a professional outfit.
Click to expand...

Now I'm even more curious, why wouldn't it work? Surely New Jersey/ New York have a rivalry?
 
powerfulduck said:
Now I'm even more curious, why wouldn't it work? Surely New Jersey/ New York have a rivalry?
Click to expand...

New York tends more to have a rivalry with Boston

NFL: Giants/Jets v Patriots
MLB: Yankees v Red Sox
NBA: Knicks v Celtics
NHL: Rangers v Bruins

From Boston.com

[TEXTAREA]Johnny Damon's grand slam. Aaron Bleeping Boone. David Tyree's helmet catch. These events are tattooed in the brains of hardcore Boston and New York sports fans. It doesn't take much to fire up residents of either city when it comes to sports, especially when the cities play each other. The towns' professional sports franchises have only met seven times in the post-season in the last 20 years.[/TEXTAREA]

Some New York teams are actually based in New Jersey, e.g. in NFL, the Giants and the Jets are both play at the Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ.

New Jersey doesn't even have an MLB team or a NBA team, and the only professional franchise of any note with the New Jersey name is in NHL; the New Jersey Devils.
 
There are some pro sports teams in North America that do market themselves on a state or provincial basis, most are small market teams or are located in smaller cities within a populated area.

eg. Almost all Minnesota teams, NHL: Wild, NBA: Timberwolves, NFL: Vikings and MLB: Twins, The New England area is the same with the Patriots(NFL) and Revolution(MLS), in Canada some of the CFL teams have provincial identities, the British Columbia Lions and Saskatchewan Roughriders for example.

I don't think it would be impossible for a regional model to succeed in North America but it would certainly be a change from the majority of athletic competetion, there is often a strong sense of State(Provincial) or Regional identity in most places here, if it was marketed correctly and the rivalries stoked properly it could work.
 
powerfulduck said:
Now I'm even more curious, why wouldn't it work? Surely New Jersey/ New York have a rivalry?
Click to expand...

Because New Jersey is essentially just a suburb of New York City. Newark, East Rutherford, etc... are like boroughs of NYC. On top of this New York State has like 20 million people in it so any team that tries to call itself the state team but bases itself in NYC automatically fails because there is NYC and then the rest of New York. For instance, try getting someone from Buffalo to cheer for a team based in NYC.... ain't gonna happen.

In Canada the provincial model works a little bit better because of our more rural population but again you run into the problem of under-representation of certain groups which ****** people off. Take our Canadian Rugby Championship for instance. In Ontario we have the Ontario Blues but realistically it should be called the Toronto Blues because almost nobody from Ottawa or the rest of Eastern Ontario plays for them. Little Guy alluded to the CFL and yes some CFL teams are based on a regional model; however, even then their is talk of doing away with that. The Saskatchewan Roughriders are based in Regine but also draw their fans from Saskatoon. Football is so popular in Saskatchewan that Saskatoon is talking about wanting their own team.

Personally I think the way forward for pro rugby in North America is to take the CRC and merge it with a relevant American organization and build them game up together. Canada and the US also need to sort out their club competitions and Canada especially needs to sort out its university game. Regionalism hurts rugby in Canada, especially when every province and every union wants their own piece of the pie. Like why the heck would they put the Atlantic Rock in NFLD? Their are four club teams in NFLD... yes four and they base one of our four regional teams there. Meanwhile, Nova Scotia, NB, PEI and Quebec (yes our second biggest province and which is a few thousand miles away from newfoundland) have a combined 47+ club teams.

Two of our most successful players of late .... i.e. Jebb Sinclair and Chauncey O`Toole are from New Brunswick and played for the loyalists but had to move their asses all the way to NFLD and then Victoria to get a look at because our recruitment system and union infighting are so bad they wouldn`t have got a look otherwise. Imagine if we based our rugby decisions less on oldboy politics and actually worked on fostering our club game? Maybe we would be able to find 5 or 10 Jebb Sinclair`s in rural NB and NS?

This is a rant but regional rugby does not work in Canada, we are too spread out and it gets far too political to make it viable. I think regional rugby works in a place like Ireland because its very small and you can drive across the island in 5 or 6 hours. I grew up in one of our smallest provinces and it takes that long to drive across it. Right now it takes me 17 hours to drive home everytime I want to visit my family just to give you an idea of how big this country is.
 
Thanks for your replies guys, i've learnt alot more about Canadian rugby there.

It seems a shame though, a ready made franchise area system there with the states.
 
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