Why does rugby league have trouble expanding internationally compared to other codes

[Whatwhere]

It has nothing to do with RL expanding and everything to do with bringing more yawn yawn into the discussion which is all you want.

We get it, you love union, talk about its finer details in the Union section. There is nothing you can say here we haven't heard and argued about before, the others never managed to change any of our opinions on rugby versus union so what makes you think you have a hope?

You're assuming I'm trying to sway opinions. I'm not. Never have.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

Glad that's all sorted.

In regards the thread I don't think RL as a whole has worried too much about expansion until recent decades. I know the big 3 got France up and going with games and tours at the right time and the former Yugoslavia. The times they have played exhibition matches in places like the USA, weird weather and stuff has happened nothing you can do about that if the people can't see what they came to look at. There hasn't been many countries where the game got together and went for it. It was more or less sporatic at best and often treated as a bit of a joke. The last two decades are the polar opposite.

 

[BODISGOD]

And yet not one of those sports banned anyone from their sport if they played another before or after.

You just don't get it and you never will, I think it's on purpose actually.

Wrong

But in 1905, a new ban was enacted that forbade any member of the GAA from either participating in or even watching ‘foreign’ games. Of course, the foreign games being referred to weren’t all foreign games. In reality the ban imposed on the GAA membership was explicitly about them playing cricket, hockey, rugby or soccer

http://www.the42.ie/gaa-ending-of-ban-on-foreign-games-2096952-May2015/

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

And how long did that last idiot, 120 years like the lot you are standing up for? Did they go out of their way like your mob did?

Stop talking utter shit, you are a bore.

 

[BODISGOD]

And how long did that last idiot, 120 years like the lot you are standing up for? Did they go out of their way like your mob did?

Stop talking utter shit, you are a bore.

Wah wah wah

Facts don't care about your feelings.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

No the facts are the GAA hated anything to do with POM's you mutant. They didn't ban just one sport and continue for 100 plus years to do everything they could to eradicate said pom sports where ever they came up against them.

Nothing at all like what you are trying to portray, nothing at all.

As I said before, you are boring and all the garbage excuses you come up with are boring.

 

[BODISGOD]

No the facts are the GAA hated anything to do with POM's you mutant. They didn't ban just one sport and continue for 100 plus years to do everything they could to eradicate said pom sports where ever they came up against them.

Nothing at all like what you are trying to portray, nothing at all.

As I said before, you are boring and all the garbage excuses you come up with are boring.

The GAA strategically banned "foreign games".

The reason being that these games were well entrenched in Irish society. There is one dominant hurling country in Ireland, and it is no surprise that is where cricket was once very popular in Ireland. The GAA did everything in their power to drive these sports out where they could. This happened all over Ireland.

If you think this was just about hating "Poms" then you are wrong. It was a deliberate strategic decision by the Organisation to align themselves with the nationalists who won power in the early 1920s. By doing this they curried favour and won new state funds.

To give an illustration of their power, probably Ireland's foremost statesman of the 20th Century Éamon DeValera, did not attend a rugby match for nearly 50 years because he did not want to create a political issue. This was despite the fact that his favourite sport was rugby and he played it all through growing up. Another President, Douglas Hyde, who helped found a GAA sister organisation the Gaelic League - kicked out of the GAA when he was serving as President of the country for attending an international soccer match. Nobody f**ked with the GAA in Ireland.

The GAA took the majority of State funds for the bulk of the century, helping to build up their facilities (and of course, locked all other sports out, something that continues to this day).

As for other organisations - they've been listed. The NCAA to this day has strict rules on amateurs. If you just declare you are going pro, you are not going back to play amateur college football, even if you never play a down. I gave the Olympics example, an organisation which was strict on amateurs right up to the 70s.

The ones who moan the loudest? Rugby League fans. Do they have valid points, of course. Not everything was right but nor was it so unique. And neither was it the case that RL did not have weapons on their side. They did, money. And they attracted over hundreds of players, players from areas where rugby league didn't even have a grassroots footprint. Yet they couldn't build the grassroots in these areas - the reason being it was always club first. Leeds/Wigan ect, did not give a fiddlers about Ebbw Vale becoming a rugby league powerhouse. They wanted the talent.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

Look no one here cares or gives a stuff about your weird and warped thoughts about some old crones that hated poms 100 years ago, you are delusional. So rack off and let the thread die that you and you two unionist mates ruined before I lock the thread and request you be banished to tfc where you belong, you are a dumb drongo that's for sure. You can't tell the difference between sporting bastardisation and abunch of old soaks that hated the queen and her subjects.

You're an idiot.

 

[kiwileaguefan]

Yesterday I flick through our sports channel and find the women's u20's football world cup being played in PNG. I can't believe in the only country in the world where rugby league is number 1, we are too scared to run a tournament.

 

[ULYSSES]

Yesterday I flick through our sports channel and find the women's u20's football world cup being played in PNG. I can't believe in the only country in the world where rugby league is number 1, we are too scared to run a tournament.

While we remain tribal in our outlook we will have difficulty expanding. The cultures or civilisations that expanded their influence throughout history had globalisation as their goal.

 

[Stormwarrior82]

Rugby League seems hell bent of protecting there own interests. they seem to have recently gone a little bit away from that which is good to see.

Maybe a Big rugby league convention before or after the world cup next year to help other smaller nations prosper.

 

[Willow]

Utter bollix?


Watch this documentary from the 60s. The North coming down to raid Welsh rugby union stars, none of whom played rugby league growing up.

Plenty went North.

That's a great piece of footage from the 1960s but of course the history goes much further back. The coal boom in the early 20th century saw the population in South Wales increase enormously, and the Welsh Rugby Football players had more in common with the players in the north of England. But the Rugby Football Union seemed to learn from their mistakes (when they essentially forced the hand of the Clubs in the north). They opted to turn something of a blind eye to Welsh players receiving boot money. It's clear that this stemmed the flow of players leaving Rugby Union.

The same can be said when Rugby League was venturing south and got almost as far as the doorsteps of Rugby School. Both Leicester and Coventry were secretly paying the players, the RFU knew if they continued punishing these Clubs they would lose out to the north. They pretty much drew a line in the sand by allowing certain amounts of professionalism to take place.

If the RFU treated the Welsh and English midlands Clubs in the same manner that they treated the northern Clubs, then this most likely would have spelled the end for Union. The old rugbeians would have been fighting on two fronts, and Rugby Union would have copped a greater loss than the one they suffered when they broke away from the Football Association (to become soccer) some years earlier.

RL made no effort to grow the international game. They had plenty of Welsh stars but failed to build an international game. If RL is such a great game and anyone who watches will fall in love, then it was up to RL to sell their sport with these international standards.

Any suggestion that Rugby League failed to build an international game is completely wrong. It is international game, whether you like it or not - in the 1960s Rugby League Tests between Australia and Great Britain were big drawcards. The first ever Rugby World Cup was played in 1954 under Rugby League rules, some 33 years before the first Rugby Union World Cup. It is the way of Rugby Union to be ignorant of this, deliberately or otherwise.

 

[Knownothing]

1954? The 1960s?




I remember. But the vast majority of sports fans could not care less about those years.



RU has a proper international governing body, which is rolling in dosh. It sets the rules, it sets the international schedules, and it is effectively independent of national interests.


Do you spot the difference? Today?

 

[Arucard]

RU......... nobody cares here

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Yep this sounds about right.


https://www.theguardian.com/sport/n...gue-championship-rugby-hull-kr-bradford-bulls

Goal-line drop-out
Word reaches me that the geniuses who head up the RFL, ARL and NZRL have turned down £2.4m. It was on the table from Moore Sports International to host an international tournament in 2022, the proposed second RLIF property. The leaders of the rugby league world have stalled on the plan, reluctant to move from their ideal schedule of 2017 World Cup/2019 secondary event/2021 World Cup/2023 secondary event. Promoters MSI have secured the 2025 World Cup, subject to no constitutional objections from any other nation who were not given the opportunity to bid for it. Now, quite sensibly, they do not want to go up against the rugby union World Cup in 2023, given “rugby is rugby” to most potential north American investors and sponsors. They put up a $3m guarantee to underwrite a 2022 tournament instead, which has been snubbed!

The big three’s leaders are obsessed with launching an international Nines circuit but RLIF chief David Collier has found no interest in that from the major TV buyers, who do want another tournament of the top nations. Therefore, 2019 is most likely to feature an Ashes tour down under (with a return series in England in 2020) – neither of which can be guaranteed to bring in $3m – while everyone else twiddles their thumbs.

 

[BODISGOD]

Any suggestion that Rugby League failed to build an international game is completely wrong. It is international game, whether you like it or not - in the 1960s Rugby League Tests between Australia and Great Britain were big drawcards. The first ever Rugby World Cup was played in 1954 under Rugby League rules, some 33 years before the first Rugby Union World Cup. It is the way of Rugby Union to be ignorant of this, deliberately or otherwise.

How many GB games were played in Wales? I'll see Odsal, Headingley, Central Park, Wembley...Wales or Scotland?

Wales entered one rugby league world cup before 1995, given the players available this was ridiculous.

The mistake you are making is in thinking that GB would motivate people in the other nations to watch the games. Same goes with Brian Carney, big player on the GB team but no effort to actually embrace Irish rugby league in there by the RFL.

It was the same old story with professional sports, looking to strip the resources and not develop the actual sport there. You can moan about rugby union all you like, but there were other options. Wales used Ninian Park, there were options for the RFL and International rugby league, but they did not bother. Did Billy Boston ever play in Wales again after going north?

 

[Knownothing]

Come on, mate, there is nothing to like about rugby union.

Except the name. Figure that one out.

 

[adamkungl]

Yep this sounds about right.


https://www.theguardian.com/sport/n...gue-championship-rugby-hull-kr-bradford-bulls

Goal-line drop-out
Word reaches me that the geniuses who head up the RFL, ARL and NZRL have turned down £2.4m. It was on the table from Moore Sports International to host an international tournament in 2022, the proposed second RLIF property. The leaders of the rugby league world have stalled on the plan, reluctant to move from their ideal schedule of 2017 World Cup/2019 secondary event/2021 World Cup/2023 secondary event. Promoters MSI have secured the 2025 World Cup, subject to no constitutional objections from any other nation who were not given the opportunity to bid for it. Now, quite sensibly, they do not want to go up against the rugby union World Cup in 2023, given “rugby is rugby” to most potential north American investors and sponsors. They put up a $3m guarantee to underwrite a 2022 tournament instead, which has been snubbed!

The big three’s leaders are obsessed with launching an international Nines circuit but RLIF chief David Collier has found no interest in that from the major TV buyers, who do want another tournament of the top nations. Therefore, 2019 is most likely to feature an Ashes tour down under (with a return series in England in 2020) – neither of which can be guaranteed to bring in $3m – while everyone else twiddles their thumbs.

Tbh having a major tournament a year after a World Cup would be pretty silly.

I'd go 2 years between, Union WC or not. It's likely enough that the 2 would have minimal overlap anyway - the last one ended in October.

There are format options this tournament could take which would open it up to more options, we don't necessarily have to go the route of hosting a large comp in one country.

The RLIF should come up with the format and time, and sell it later. Mind you, there are obvious doubts over their ability to do that if they can't even sell a Nines comp.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

First WC winning captain was Scottish, as said before BOG, you are a bore.

 

[jim_57]

Unless the Union World Cup is being played in the same country (this is obviously avoidable on our end) than who cares about "going head to head" with it? We shouldn't be sacrificing a year of our international calendar because there is another sport's world cup on.

Likely it wouldn't overlap much if at all anyway.