morningstar
Juniors
- Messages
- 826
This has come out of left field...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/s...owth-with-a-global-event-on-us-soil.html?_r=0
Plan Seeks to Aid Rugby’s Growth With a Global Event on U.S. Soil
When an Australian sports promoter named Jason Moore gazes across the vast and increasingly varied American sports landscape, he sees room to grow for yet another international sport: rugby league.
With tens of thousands of rugby players already active in youth and amateur leagues across the country, the United States has the potential to produce tens of thousands more — not to mention prospective ticket buyers and television viewers.
Rugby is the fastest-growing team sport in the United States, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, a national trade group. According to figures supplied by U.S.A. Rugby — the national governing body for rugby union, rugby league’s cousin — the number of youth participants doubled between 2010 and 2015.
There is also talent already available from another sport: About half of the United States team for this year’s Olympics once played football.
“The commercial power of the U.S. market is very attractive,” Moore said in a telephone interview Monday. “We’re going to a different well of water.”
Moore’s company, Moore Sports International, planned to submit a bid on Tuesday for the United States to host the Rugby League World Cup for the first time, in 2021. That international tournament is held once every four years, and 2021 will represent the sport’s 16th World Cup; Australia has won the event 10 times.
Moore has some experience with transplanting international sports. Two years ago, his company helped Major League Baseball present a two-game regular-season series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks on a diamond cut into the venerable Sydney Cricket Ground in Australia. The two games drew more than 76,000 fans combined.
Rugby league uses 13 players and is considered to be less stodgy and more wide-open than its 15-player relative, rugby union. (Rugby will be contested at the Rio Olympics for the first time since 1924 and will use a speedier, seven-player format.)
The Rugby League World Cup is a six-week tournament played in cities across the host region. Under the plan from Moore’s company, the men’s games would be played in eight to 10 N.F.L. or Major League Soccer stadiums in the fall of 2021. There would also be an eight-team women’s tournament.
Similar to American football, rugby league includes big hits, intricate strategy and a lot of kicking and running, but without as many head-to-head hits, which can lead to concussions because the players do not wear helmets.
Moore called rugby league “an outstanding product for television” that he said American fans would enjoy because of its similarities to football — another “gladiatorial” sport, as he called it. Tries and conversions in rugby are akin to touchdowns and extra points in football.
“Think of the N.F.L. with no pads, lateral passing and six downs,” Moore said. “We see rugby league, in this country, appealing to fans of the N.F.L. and college football who are hungry for contact and physicality in sports.”
The Rugby League International Federation will determine which country wins the bid for the 2021 World Cup. If in November the United States is awarded the tournament, it will be the first time the event has been scheduled outside Europe or Oceania. The 2017 World Cup will be played in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
The American team, nicknamed the Hawks, qualified for the Rugby League World Cup for the first time in 2013, advancing to the quarterfinals in the 14-team field before losing to Australia, 62-0. Australia beat New Zealand for the World Cup title before a capacity crowd of 74,000 at Old Trafford in England, the home of the Manchester United soccer team.
There have been notable crossover players. After playing in the National Rugby League in Australia, Jarryd Hayne played in eight games for the San Francisco 49ers last season, rushing for 52 yards and catching six passes.
Hayne also returned eight punts for 76 yards, including a 37-yarder, but he announced his retirement after the season to pursue a spot with the rugby team that will represent Fiji at the Summer Olympics.
Because the R.L.I.F. announces the host of the World Cup four years before the tournament is held, Moore sees a long “runway” to fostering even more interest in the sport in the United States.
The United States currently has two low-profile leagues, the 14-team U.S.A. Rugby League, which has concluded its regular season and begins its playoffs this week, and the five-team Professional Rugby Organization, for rugby union players, which debuted this year. Moore said he would also like to launch what he called “an elite standard competition,” or a top-flight league.
But he also envisions thousands of rugby league fans from other countries descending on the United States to watch games, helping tourism in the process. “And you’re not likely going to places where there’s nothing else to do,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/s...owth-with-a-global-event-on-us-soil.html?_r=0
Plan Seeks to Aid Rugby’s Growth With a Global Event on U.S. Soil
When an Australian sports promoter named Jason Moore gazes across the vast and increasingly varied American sports landscape, he sees room to grow for yet another international sport: rugby league.
With tens of thousands of rugby players already active in youth and amateur leagues across the country, the United States has the potential to produce tens of thousands more — not to mention prospective ticket buyers and television viewers.
Rugby is the fastest-growing team sport in the United States, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, a national trade group. According to figures supplied by U.S.A. Rugby — the national governing body for rugby union, rugby league’s cousin — the number of youth participants doubled between 2010 and 2015.
There is also talent already available from another sport: About half of the United States team for this year’s Olympics once played football.
“The commercial power of the U.S. market is very attractive,” Moore said in a telephone interview Monday. “We’re going to a different well of water.”
Moore’s company, Moore Sports International, planned to submit a bid on Tuesday for the United States to host the Rugby League World Cup for the first time, in 2021. That international tournament is held once every four years, and 2021 will represent the sport’s 16th World Cup; Australia has won the event 10 times.
Moore has some experience with transplanting international sports. Two years ago, his company helped Major League Baseball present a two-game regular-season series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks on a diamond cut into the venerable Sydney Cricket Ground in Australia. The two games drew more than 76,000 fans combined.
Rugby league uses 13 players and is considered to be less stodgy and more wide-open than its 15-player relative, rugby union. (Rugby will be contested at the Rio Olympics for the first time since 1924 and will use a speedier, seven-player format.)
The Rugby League World Cup is a six-week tournament played in cities across the host region. Under the plan from Moore’s company, the men’s games would be played in eight to 10 N.F.L. or Major League Soccer stadiums in the fall of 2021. There would also be an eight-team women’s tournament.
Similar to American football, rugby league includes big hits, intricate strategy and a lot of kicking and running, but without as many head-to-head hits, which can lead to concussions because the players do not wear helmets.
Moore called rugby league “an outstanding product for television” that he said American fans would enjoy because of its similarities to football — another “gladiatorial” sport, as he called it. Tries and conversions in rugby are akin to touchdowns and extra points in football.
“Think of the N.F.L. with no pads, lateral passing and six downs,” Moore said. “We see rugby league, in this country, appealing to fans of the N.F.L. and college football who are hungry for contact and physicality in sports.”
The Rugby League International Federation will determine which country wins the bid for the 2021 World Cup. If in November the United States is awarded the tournament, it will be the first time the event has been scheduled outside Europe or Oceania. The 2017 World Cup will be played in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
The American team, nicknamed the Hawks, qualified for the Rugby League World Cup for the first time in 2013, advancing to the quarterfinals in the 14-team field before losing to Australia, 62-0. Australia beat New Zealand for the World Cup title before a capacity crowd of 74,000 at Old Trafford in England, the home of the Manchester United soccer team.
There have been notable crossover players. After playing in the National Rugby League in Australia, Jarryd Hayne played in eight games for the San Francisco 49ers last season, rushing for 52 yards and catching six passes.
Hayne also returned eight punts for 76 yards, including a 37-yarder, but he announced his retirement after the season to pursue a spot with the rugby team that will represent Fiji at the Summer Olympics.
Because the R.L.I.F. announces the host of the World Cup four years before the tournament is held, Moore sees a long “runway” to fostering even more interest in the sport in the United States.
The United States currently has two low-profile leagues, the 14-team U.S.A. Rugby League, which has concluded its regular season and begins its playoffs this week, and the five-team Professional Rugby Organization, for rugby union players, which debuted this year. Moore said he would also like to launch what he called “an elite standard competition,” or a top-flight league.
But he also envisions thousands of rugby league fans from other countries descending on the United States to watch games, helping tourism in the process. “And you’re not likely going to places where there’s nothing else to do,” he said.
