Piggybacking off the All Blacks

[RoosTah]

So this weekend the All Blacks will be playing the USA Eagles in a Rugby Union international in Chicago in front of a sold-out crowd of over 60k.

Now, confusion about what Rugby is in the US is rife, and NBCSports summed that confusion up with this absolute pearler in their description of the ABs in their summary of the match:

The All Blacks are the reigning Rugby World Cup champions from 2011, and were runners-up at the 2013 Rugby League World Cup

Full article:
http://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/2...-at-soldier-field-saturday-november-1-on-nbc/

Now, whilst this is pretty funny, I can't help but think it also offers a bit of an opportunity for Rugby League. By that I mean, why not host an international Rugby League match between Australia and New Zealand in the very same ground?

You could market it pretty simply - "Heavyweight Rugby match: current world cup champions Australia to play former World Cup holders New Zealand in international rugby match".

In plenty of places "Rugby" refers to Rugby League, so we don't need to explain the difference. Just schedule the game and work on getting coverage and interest to piggyback off the All Blacks predictable wipe-out of the Eagles.

 

[AlwaysGreen]

Yeah, nah.

 

[TheDalek079]

All Blacks are fantastic!!

 

[Usain Bolt]

 

[RoosTah]

I'm very much serious - the All Blacks are pulling 60k and nobody there knows the difference between League and Union. Why not use that confusion to our advantage by staging a trans-tasman test?

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Because the NRL doesn't want rugby league to grow in the USA.

 

[RoosTah]

Because the NRL doesn't want rugby league to grow in the USA.

It should be around brand awareness - if they could grow interest in League, then the natural thing for Americans to do would be tuning into big events like SOO or the NRL GF. That can only help the NRL

 

[East Coast Tiger]

No shit. But we're talking about incompetant morons here.

 

[Warrior@Heart]

Maybe a 9s World Series (International teams) in NY, LA & Hawaii. Play it same weeks as SOO.

 

[DeeJ]

Thus proving the Kangaroos are better than the All Blacks (current squads permitted).

 

[alien]

60k in chicago is awesome!!! usa tomahawks could have played at the same ground in a game before the all blacks v usa eagles match. maybe against france or wales. even against canada would have been ok. maybe next time..

 

[RoosTah]

60k in chicago is awesome!!! usa tomahawks could have played at the same ground in a game before the all blacks v usa eagles match. maybe against france or wales. even against canada would have been ok. maybe next time..

A double header with Union would have been a little tricky and unlikely, but I'm all for capitalising on the confusing over there about the two codes of Rugby - maybe even get the Kiwis to wear that "All Golds" jersey that bore such a resemblance to the All Blacks haha.

Either way, you get 60k Americans being exposed to top level Rugby League. It may be a bit cynical, but I reckon that if they were exposed to both League and Union, they'd probably prefer League.

 

[firechild]

One problem though would be that thousands of Americans might watch the All Blacks v Eagles game and think "what a steaming pile of crap that game was" and when the RL game comes around they don't want to sit through it all again.

 

[RoosTah]

One problem though would be that thousands of Americans might watch the All Blacks v Eagles game and think "what a steaming pile of crap that game was" and when the RL game comes around they don't want to sit through it all again.

I'm banking on them thinking "jeez that was a walk-over! I wonder what a game against more evenly match opposition would be like"

 

[oikee]

We have social media, Super League i think is broadcast across the northern hemisphere.
We have the Rabbits, Rusty Crowe, along with the Broncos as a brand name and Dragons and Knights, we have all the big name followings.
Along with Sonny Bill and Sam Burgess (Falou to a lessor extent) now leading the charge with our league players highly paid and superstars in their sport, we can grow our game nicely around the world.

Why rush over to America, we have still got to get our own international game off the ground throughout Australia and England first.

The thing a like about Dave smith in charge, we dont seem to be rushing things.
Going to America would be rushing things to me.
Nobody knows or cares who the All-Blacks are in America, they did a piece the other day and somebody in Chicago thought they were the black basketball team or something, ,,, "women's team he said."

 

[RoosTah]

We have social media, Super League i think is broadcast across the northern hemisphere.
We have the Rabbits, Rusty Crowe, along with the Broncos as a brand name and Dragons and Knights, we have all the big name followings.
Along with Sonny Bill and Sam Burgess (Falou to a lessor extent) now leading the charge with our league players highly paid and superstars in their sport, we can grow our game nicely around the world.

Why rush over to America, we have still got to get our own international game off the ground throughout Australia and England first.

The thing a like about Dave smith in charge, we dont seem to be rushing things.
Going to America would be rushing things to me.
Nobody knows or cares who the All-Blacks are in America, they did a piece the other day and somebody in Chicago thought they were the black basketball team or something, ,,, "women's team he said."

Some fair points there Oikee. But all the same, in spite of that ignorance in the US, they've still sold out a 60k+ stadium to watch an international rugby game. Sure, the media presence isn't huge and awareness overall remains low, but it's still a fairly impressive effort and I think it does represent an opportunity.

But I do agree that a national footprint should be sought in Australia - over the next 20 years I'd really love to see Perth, Adelaide, and two extra teams in NZ added into the competition.

 

[oikee]

You want to piggyback off someone or something. ? Piggyback off our own game.
I mean the top rugby comp in the southern hemisphere is the NRL.
We have the NRL premiership, we have Origin, we now have Nines which is world-class, loads better than sevens rubbish, we have our internationals that players from overseas love to be part of, what we dont do is sell ourselves.

We, we the pacific and Australia and NZ right through to PNG are the exotic.
We should be expanding our code so more and more players from around the world can join our exotic code in our wonderful exotic locations. During winter as well.

America has Gridiron, that will never change.
What we dont want to do is waste 50 years in America, we have a goldmine sitting right on our very own doorstep.
Make sure Canada and America get into the next few world-cups will do more good.

It's funny you know, i poped into trl to read some comments the other day, came across a blog about the international game not selling itself to sponsors.
That is one area to open up, another is selling yourself to new cities.
Maybe not in places like New York just yet, but i am sure that the Queensland government Tourism agency paid alot of money to have the opening of the four nations in Brisbane.
Its Live in Queensland was one of the few sponsor signs.
The Queensland government would have paid handsomely to have that publicity.
More and more cities are paying millions to hold league events.
Melbourne i think paid 5 million for the origin game.
Sydney paid 20 million to keep the NRL final for 10 years.
We got ripped off bigtime their i might add.
NZ council paid 9 million for the Nines for 5 years.

 

[oikee]

NSW and their players need to be awfully careful backing Gallen and thinjking they can hold the code and administrators to ransom.
I am sure Queensland wont support them, and if i was the QRL, i would then just negotiate to play NZ.

The game is bigger than the players, always.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

NSW and their players need to be awfully careful backing Gallen and thinjking they can hold the code and administrators to ransom.
I am sure Queensland wont support them, and if i was the QRL, i would then just negotiate to play NZ.

The game is bigger than the players, always.

f**k qld, the game is bigger than your pathetic little state.

Geez you go on with some shit!

And what a dumb thread, stuff the team from another sport, our sport has values also, another thing that other lot don't have.

 

[AlwaysGreen]

NSW and their players need to be awfully careful backing Gallen and thinjking they can hold the code and administrators to ransom.
I am sure Queensland wont support them, and if i was the QRL, i would then just negotiate to play NZ.

The game is bigger than the players, always.

f**k me, you're one hell of a troll. :lol::lol: