BREAKING: RLIF awards England 2021 RLWC, Nth America recommended 2025

[Last Week]

What do you believe needs to happen in North America prior to 2025 for a successful World Cup to be held there at that time? Is a "semi-pro" competition necessary, or do we just need to see some North Americans playing in the NRL and/or ESL? Where do you see the Toronto Wolfpack being at that time? Do you really think they might be able to make it all the way to Super League? Will we see a 2nd Canadian team crossing the pond, or even an American one? I suspect we'll only get one chance to get this right. What does everyone think will be the best way to achieve it?

How to achieve it? I don't know. I'll leave that to those on the ground.

But I would feel comfortable with the US and Canada hosting a World Cup if I was confident that there would be good crowds and long term support for the local game there.

A professional or semi professional league would be great, but only if it were icing on top of strong and supported lower tiered competitions.

Edit: When I say supported, I would ideally like to believe that means supported by governments. But I'm not sure if US governments do that.

 

[adamkungl]

What do you believe needs to happen in North America prior to 2025 for a successful World Cup to be held there at that time? Is a "semi-pro" competition necessary, or do we just need to see some North Americans playing in the NRL and/or ESL? Where do you see the Toronto Wolfpack being at that time? Do you really think they might be able to make it all the way to Super League? Will we see a 2nd Canadian team crossing the pond, or even an American one? I suspect we'll only get one chance to get this right. What does everyone think will be the best way to achieve it?

Ideal fantasy:

-Grow amateur leagues across the country with the goal of having USARL teams in major cities/regions.

-Start a small scale professional league by 2020

-Introduce game into schools and colleges as much as possible.

-Annual World 9s Tournament launched in USA in 2018. North America to be the first step in a competition that eventually has a leg in every continent every year.

-Annual tours to the US and Canada by other nations over the next 8 years. Each of the top 8 ranked nations to go once.

-I'm hesitant on a major tournament being held as a test run - I'm not sure it has much appeal without the 'World Cup' name attached. But 2023 would be the time to do it.