Reality Check

[deal.with.it]

But isnt there 14 teams? Lets not foget some of the other reasons why usarl was formed: forfeits, facilities, off field development.
I know teams like sharks and raiders are similar talent wise, but sharks are better off field. Baltimore might be weak, but they turn up to every scheduled game. Oneida is weaker than boston, but both teams have great facilities. I agree, very hard to draw a line... If all teams could meet a few minimum reqs, then id be happy for one division. When teams dont have websites or update social media, its hard to sell a product, and thats what they are meant to be doing.
I would think baltimore, oneida, nova, raiders and any newcomers ie southampton. But then how far are these tier 2 teams travelling?
So i would change my mind again and say all teams in one division, in 2 geo conferences, if they can meet some standards. And then all teams have 3 months to get up to scratch!

 

[Fatwing15]

But isnt there 14 teams? Lets not foget some of the other reasons why usarl was formed: forfeits, facilities, off field development.
I know teams like sharks and raiders are similar talent wise, but sharks are better off field. Baltimore might be weak, but they turn up to every scheduled game. Oneida is weaker than boston, but both teams have great facilities. I agree, very hard to draw a line... If all teams could meet a few minimum reqs, then id be happy for one division. When teams dont have websites or update social media, its hard to sell a product, and thats what they are meant to be doing.
I would think baltimore, oneida, nova, raiders and any newcomers ie southampton. But then how far are these tier 2 teams travelling?
So i would change my mind again and say all teams in one division, in 2 geo conferences, if they can meet some standards. And then all teams have 3 months to get up to scratch!

Were there any forfeits in the USARL the last 2 years? I think there was 1 this year in the AMNRL, and not sure about the year before (I might be wrong) Forfeits are the absolute worst. Raiders do a pretty good job with their website, I have never been to a NOVA, Baltimore or Oneida website. I didnt count the teams, but I honestly just combined Onieda and Boston as well as DC, Balt and NOVA (which is probably a terrible mistake) I do like the idea of 2 divisions, and the teams that have the best funds/talent volunteer to travel to JAX. Jacksonville's on field product is so important to the game in the US that I think it is important to send competitive teams down there for every game.

I never played at Boston or Oneida what are their fields like? Also, just because players from the Raiders don't post on here doesn't mean they are not doing anything off the field, they have a good website, and their field isn't that bad. They also traveled with 30 people to play in Bucks County, We were actually able to have a reserve game, which was really awesome.

 

[deal.with.it]

I think the warriors forfeited a game?? Yes AMNRL in 2012 was pretty good, but previous years there were matches not played on schedule, teams forfeiting last minute etc.
I have not been to a raiders match, but have seen pics of their field. It is not great. And their website isn't updated regularly, but either is the DC Slayers, NOVA Eagles etc. Oneida has a website, it shares with the Oneida Soccer team.
Oneida and Boston have brilliant facilities. Take a look at the 2012 USARL grand final. Stadium is packed and great field (Synthetic). I believe they also have use of a lot of MIT facilities, for video sessions etc.
Agreed, Jax is the best, and their match day efforts are unmatched - yet.
I would not want to be to told I can't play in the top division if unification occurs. What should be told is "all teams are welcome to join the top division conferences, if they can meet some basic requirements."
I think that is ok to ask that of teams. So what are the requirements and which teams need to improve to meet these basic requirements?
Jax - fine.
Boston 13s - fine.
Philly - fine.
Rebellion - fine.
Oneida - on field performance needs to improve.
New Haven - both on and off field need to improve after 2012's rebuilding stage. They need an updated website, social media presense, and need to work out if their matches are played at the local park field or Ken Strong Stadium.
DC - website and social media needs updating. They do record all matches for youtube, but need to interact with fans more.
Baltimore - need a website and greater social media activity. Not sure about their facilities. And obviously they need to improve on field.

Raiders - need to look at their ground. Need locker rooms and some basic fan facilities. Need greater social media activity and update website.
Wildcats - great on field team. Need updated website and greater social media interaction. Match facilities are good.
NY Knights - fine. But could always interact more and update website/social media more. Should look at livestream or youtube clips.
NOVA - need website updated and greater social media presence. Not sure about facilities or team performance (anyone know??)
Bulls - Not sure about team performance or match day facilities?? Need to update website and more social media interaction.
Sharks - Not sure about match day facilities and experience, or crowd size?? Otherwise fine.

 

[pennpool]

Everyone seems to be forgetting the one major thing about rugby league in America. It is an amateur competition.

Looking at an elite division is dead in the water. Just ask rugby unions super league. And they have many times more the participation numbers than league.

Stop trying to make it what it is not ready to be. You need a field, a kit, a team and a referee. You need local sponsors and local fundraising.

Then, lets play some rugby league boys.

Any elite comp is destined to fail. The travel costs are horrendous. The participation drops the further you travel. And the teams just heamorage money.

Geographical divisions with minimal travel costs are the only way this game will grow.

Oh yes. And for the safety of the participants, Synthetic fields and fields that double as baseball fields should be banned. All grass surfaces should be the only surface to play on.

 

[Dusters]

Everyone seems to be forgetting the one major thing about rugby league in America. It is an amateur competition.

Looking at an elite division is dead in the water. Just ask rugby unions super league. And they have many times more the participation numbers than league.

Stop trying to make it what it is not ready to be. You need a field, a kit, a team and a referee. You need local sponsors and local fundraising.

Then, lets play some rugby league boys.

Any elite comp is destined to fail. The travel costs are horrendous. The participation drops the further you travel. And the teams just heamorage money.

Geographical divisions with minimal travel costs are the only way this game will grow.

Oh yes. And for the safety of the participants, Synthetic fields and fields that double as baseball fields should be banned. All grass surfaces should be the only surface to play on.

Finally someone writes a post on here that understands the game of Rugby League in America. Well done pennpool!!!

 

[Fatwing15]

Everyone seems to be forgetting the one major thing about rugby league in America. It is an amateur competition.

Looking at an elite division is dead in the water. Just ask rugby unions super league. And they have many times more the participation numbers than league.

Stop trying to make it what it is not ready to be. You need a field, a kit, a team and a referee. You need local sponsors and local fundraising.

Then, lets play some rugby league boys.

Any elite comp is destined to fail. The travel costs are horrendous. The participation drops the further you travel. And the teams just heamorage money.

Geographical divisions with minimal travel costs are the only way this game will grow.

Oh yes. And for the safety of the participants, Synthetic fields and fields that double as baseball fields should be banned. All grass surfaces should be the only surface to play on.

Agreed, unification can and should be very simple.

 

[IowaRL]

Agreed, unification can and should be very simple.

If it was solely up to you Fatwing, how would you do it? Who would play what level of competition, who would they play against, how would it all work?

Anyone else want a go at a unification idea?

 

[Bronco Rob]

Everyone seems to be forgetting the one major thing about rugby league in America. It is an amateur competition.

Looking at an elite division is dead in the water. Just ask rugby unions super league. And they have many times more the participation numbers than league.

Stop trying to make it what it is not ready to be. You need a field, a kit, a team and a referee. You need local sponsors and local fundraising.

Then, lets play some rugby league boys.

Any elite comp is destined to fail. The travel costs are horrendous. The participation drops the further you travel. And the teams just heamorage money.

Geographical divisions with minimal travel costs are the only way this game will grow.

Oh yes. And for the safety of the participants, Synthetic fields and fields that double as baseball fields should be banned. All grass surfaces should be the only surface to play on.

No-one has mentioned anything about a professional competiton. You can still have an elite or first division without being professional but I agree geography is the biggest issue with the US.

I do have some experience when it comes to competitions and with amateur footy you have 2 kinds of players, ones that want to be serious and train hard and the other kind who play for fun with little training. Mixing these 2 just results in a rubbish competition and does more harm than good. Hence my suggestion that there should be at least 2 divisions if the moons aligned and there was a re-unification of the 2 bodies.

 

[pennpool]

There will be two divisions eventually but one can not survive, in the long term, as an elite division. Players simply can't and won't afford it on a large and long term scale. Ideally I would love to see divisions with promotion and relegation but its a fair distance off and very costly.

I'm not talking professional either Rob. People on here keep talking about fans, stadiums, websites, etc its all way above the actual level that the game is in this country right now. Until everyone realizes and accepts the level of league in the US then it will continue to have issues and we will continue to see things go wrong.

Google the rugby union super league and see what will happen with any idea above geographically matched teams with the current participation numbers and minimal sponsors.

People need to realize the a sport that has around 25 (at best) teams across the country with roughly 750 participants (assuming each team has about 30 people per team involved), is not making a fart in a country with 313,000,000+ million population.

National elite league ideas simply have no legs.

 

[deal.with.it]

I did not mean for an elite league to sound like a professional league, my mistake if it sounded that way.
I agree with Bronco Rob, that you have two styles of teams. One's that are doing it for fun and ones that are striving to be the best in every way.
Conferences are a must, and the USARL obviously see the need for a north and south conference.
Agreed that fundraising and sourcing local sponsors is the level of the teams.
But it doesn't take much effort to get a bit of the above listed in action.
This in turn would increase fans, and would lead to increased sponsors.
Teams like Jax doing live streams, and teams like Philly recording each game is something that teams should do - not because they are professional, but because they are striving for more.
And at the moment, there is not enough teams for a second division. Because that would mean the weakest teams would have the furthest to travel.

Perhaps having a strategic plan that is to be achieved within 2 years would be best if unification happens.
I.e. in 2 years all teams must have "x" type of field, "x" type of match facilities, "x" level of funding/budgets, "x" type of media presence.

 

[gyallop]

The game isn't big enough to start ranking clubs into divisions. Clubs will improve or fold and if they fold the serious players will join an existing club.

some clubs will be able to field a reserve grade for the less serious player as well.

Aussies need to remember to turn their minds back to 1908 and see how the game and clubs evolved. Unless a rich benefactor or the RLIF us prepared to invest funds to fast track the game it will need to grow organically clubs will come and go and hopefully in the year to come the game will be thriving, maybe never at a professional level in money terms but as a well run amateur "professional" amateur code.

 

[T Boone Pickens]

.
I agree with Bronco Rob, that you have two styles of teams. One's that are doing it for fun and ones that are striving to be the best in every way.

That's a pretty polar way of looking at it; as I see it, you have both types of players on every team, but just to varying degrees. For example: Teams like the Knights and the Axemen are made up primarily of players striving to be the best, mostly because of the team's cultures. On the other side, you have teams like the Raiders, Sharks, Bulls, Rebellion and Slayers, who have players striving to be best as well, but also have guys who are around for the social aspect.

The problem with splitting up those teams into 2 category is that putting a club in the "Social" division would be a crazy deterrent, not to mention unfair, to players training their asses off on teams that are ineligible to win the championship.

 

[Evil Homer]

That's a pretty polar way of looking at it; as I see it, you have both types of players on every team, but just to varying degrees. For example: Teams like the Knights and the Axemen are made up primarily of players striving to be the best, mostly because of the team's cultures. On the other side, you have teams like the Raiders, Sharks, Bulls, Rebellion and Slayers, who have players striving to be best as well, but also have guys who are around for the social aspect.

The problem with splitting up those teams into 2 category is that putting a club in the "Social" division would be a crazy deterrent, not to mention unfair, to players training their asses off on teams that are ineligible to win the championship.

I'm pretty sure he's not talking about the individuals' motives for playing.

 

[IowaRL]

American Rugby League could take a leaf out of the Major League Baseball playbook. Have a major top level competition, with a level below for players who aren't at the top level, but will get there, as well as the players who may never reach it, but still play hard and have a go. Having Boston as a major league with Oneida as a reserve team sort of thing. Some clubs (like bucks county) may have the numbers for two sides, but let teams like Southhampton be an affiliate for the Knights, Baltimore could feed the Rebellion and so forth. The Axemen have thier comp in Florida, do something along those lines in the North East with multiple feeders

 

[Fatwing15]

American Rugby League could take a leaf out of the Major League Baseball playbook. Have a major top level competition, with a level below for players who aren't at the top level, but will get there, as well as the players who may never reach it, but still play hard and have a go. Having Boston as a major league with Oneida as a reserve team sort of thing. Some clubs (like bucks county) may have the numbers for two sides, but let teams like Southhampton be an affiliate for the Knights, Baltimore could feed the Rebellion and so forth. The Axemen have thier comp in Florida, do something along those lines in the North East with multiple feeders

Long term, great idea, Not enough time or resources to implement this now (before the start of the season). Although it is starting to develop, RIR seems to be on their way, BCS and NYR played a reserve game and Jax has their own reserve comp. I just think this idea lacks the momentum to be brought to the bargaining table when unifying leagues right now.

IOWARL, you also asked for my idea on a unified league:

Here is my idea, Each league elects a "unification committee" that does not include any participants that were part of the split from the USARL and does not include people from the AMNRL who are bitter or holding grudges from the split. Each party brings there most important points to the table, and they work something out.

Both parties can come up with a long term plan to develop the unified league. Including improved facilities, and mandatory Social network presence and volunteers to attend a referees clinic, ect. There will obviously be many more long term goals discussed.

However, long term goals will be put on the back burner for this first meeting, and the most important detail, unification, is the main topic (and only topic if there are time constraints). This year both teams make huge concessions and do what needs to be done to unify the leagues in a simple manner. Forget about demands and anything that complicates things. Come to an agreement on the most urgent issues, a democratic voting structure, decide what teams will travel to JAX and divide the league into 2 geographical divisions to ease the burden of travel.

This will force both parties to have open dialog through out the season. And at the end of the season, a meeting focused on long term goals, and what needs to change, what worked, what didn't.

 

[IowaRL]

Hmm, you make some good points, but I don't know if we should have a "Stopgap" used this year just for the sake of unification, without having a clear plan of what the future holds. If we don't have time to work it out (Season doesn't start until after Mid May at the earliest, so we have around 3 months to get things sorted), then keep the schedules and such done for the leagues, but put the top teams into finals against each other, THEN do the tough work to swap everything next year. Personally, I'm not a fan of changing things every year, even if it's considered progress, as it's better to make sure the system will work instead of alienating people.

I agree that it's in the best interest of Rugby League to have a certain standard of facilities, and a presence on social media (the Iowa City Crash have 450 followers on Twitter and a Facebook page). An expansion of Umpiring ranks and programs is also good, both leagues have thier own programs, we need to get things moving to intergrate that too.

Voting wise, I don't like the idea of having teams not having some avenue to having a vote. I know the Crash for example shouldn't have a vote at the same level as say the Fight, but I would like to have input, and have a "regional" vote for developing teams in each area. Hopefully this all gets sorted soon, but having Unification as the only objective without making a clear plan for the future seems like a bad idea to me.

 

[deal.with.it]

Good points, very interesting. I think rather than have a stop gap year, just play the seasons out and let the winners play each other, like iowa suggested.
As for voting, each team should have a vote in the premier comp, plus there should be a voting member representing each regional league, ie midwest, west coast, hawaii etc