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Why the Silence from the USARL?

deal.with.it

Juniors
Messages
2,086
Can we get back to talking about usarl news.
Who is coaching who this year? And what is their background?
Peter Lupton and Sean Rutgerson the obvious ones.
 

deluded pom?

Coach
Messages
10,897
I personally don't use Facebook but I do have a Twitter account. I've noticed that Boston are now playng at a new venue. This information is not available on their website but it is on their Facebook page along with a photograph of the stadium. NOVA Eagles tweets contain lots of links to their Facebook page too. The question now is are websites losing their relevance? Do most people under a certain age get their news from Facebook rather than a website whereas older users (like myself ;)) tend to turn to a website first?
 
Messages
14,139
Even the Facebook pages have been largely quiet this year. The likes of Rhode Island have posted hardly anything, which points to them struggling. The other northern clubs have been pretty patchy. The southern clubs are more active. The comp is not going forward in any areas really. A few teams are playing in slightly better looking venues, but that's about it.
 

Golden point

Juniors
Messages
456
I personally don't use Facebook but I do have a Twitter account. I've noticed that Boston are now playng at a new venue. This information is not available on their website but it is on their Facebook page along with a photograph of the stadium. NOVA Eagles tweets contain lots of links to their Facebook page too. The question now is are websites losing their relevance? Do most people under a certain age get their news from Facebook rather than a website whereas older users (like myself ;)) tend to turn to a website first?
Good point. I have fb and any updates comments or anything from a page I'm following has a hit , I get a notification and check it out. So probably a much more effective tool . Come to think of it i never go on the NRL site because I have liked any relevant pages rl and get regular updates minute by minute without sourcing anything.
 

Deeecoreturns

Juniors
Messages
146
I personally don't use Facebook but I do have a Twitter account. I've noticed that Boston are now playng at a new venue. This information is not available on their website but it is on their Facebook page along with a photograph of the stadium. NOVA Eagles tweets contain lots of links to their Facebook page too. The question now is are websites losing their relevance? Do most people under a certain age get their news from Facebook rather than a website whereas older users (like myself ;)) tend to turn to a website first?

That's pretty much it tbh mate. Facebook is like a website for dummies. We don't need any programming knowledge and updates and stories can be shared, posted, commented on in seconds rather than ages. To be completely honest our website serves as a hub but even that's really being replaced by facebook; our shop can be run from there and most enquiries come emailed through Facebook rather than the site. The website is quite low on our list of priorities.

Twitter has a purpose but it doesn't work for us, we never actually use it, it's just programmed to recycle our facebook content.
 

Fighter

Juniors
Messages
284
DP, we still struggle with the same old problems we had when we were in the AMNRL, lack of time, funds and people. We have regular 9-5 jobs then have to train and build a club. We aren't focused solely on Rugby League. Some of those things will never change unfortunately due to our countries size, it is also the reason that growth is hard. Many teams start up out of passion and interest, then they get flogged by established sides and it wanes very quickly. Finding sponsors is probably our biggest issue. When I ran the Fight, I had to find about $35,000-45,000 per year to run the team. that is astronomical compared to most clubs, but I am a salesman so I made it my mission. I gave out 400 proposals a year to get 10 sponsors. Spinner did much of the same and I followed his lead to build the Fight. Unless you beat the doors down and offer a sponsor something over such a short season, you won't get one. Many suffer from just not knowing what they dont know, and that is how to sell. They have able bodies that want to play and help run clubs and organize practices and games, but on the business end of it many just have no interest or no business acumen. Until we can get some corporate sponsors involved and then in turn Rugby League Executives to spur real growth, we will continue to suffer the same way the AMNRL did. I do think we are past the problem of just keeping the league together. We have enough guys trying hard enough to do that, but the next level is hard to attain when you have 5, 6 and 7 hour drives to a game and want sponsors to support what isn't in their area.
As far as websites, they are a necessary evil, but mostly just to attract the corporate side, I dont think many millennials pay attention to them at all anymore. It is all social media and I can attest to that with my 12 year old son. He likes Instagram and you tube and he pays attention to nothing else. We will just have to adapt to stay relevant. Hopefully you guys were impressed with the new USARL website and its mobile functionality, it is something that was worked on a great deal. Will it help us get a corporate sponsor, that is yet to be seen. We can only try.
Many clubs that were very active helping us get off the ground now suffer with leadership being pulled from both ends. Family, jobs and RL. That has happened for me considerably over the past 4 years. I just didn't want to miss my kids growing up and also needed to excel at my real job. Rugby League was my life for a long time, but then life gets in the way. I think many of the younger guys that helped us start the USARL are now going through that same thing and the clubs are suffering as young guys have not stepped in to fill the void. Until the next generation of players are able to glean some knowledge from the last group, teams will fall off. Interest in new clubs is pretty good, but in areas not close to the current competition. Until we can get 4-5 teams in an area 4-5 hours away, they can't get a comp or a 9s comp going to get to the next level. The enormous gap of cities and clubs makes it really hard here to expand the league like we would want to.

Well Ryan, I've literally just checked all of the USARL team's websites and not much has changed since I started this thread. Only a handful of websites have anything less than a fortnight old on them. The Knight's website only has a schedule update, Boston is trapped in 2016 as are the Black Foxes and the Wombats. There are two days left before the season kicks off. Not impressive at all. If you want to attract people to get involved in the game over there then you have to give them something that is current and will catch their eye not something that looks like it was last updated in the year dot.
 

deluded pom?

Coach
Messages
10,897
Thanks for the response Ryan. It's just frustration and ignorance of the problems you have that initiated my OP. I'm far from a millennial and don't really use social media and the website is what I (rightly or wrongly) use to form my impression of the progress, or otherwise, of the game in the USA. It's difficult to appreciate the distances involved when you live in a country where the vast majority of rugby league towns and cities are a couple of hours away at the most. Sorry if I came across as overly critical. As I said earlier it's just frustration.
 

Fighter

Juniors
Messages
284
DP,

I didn't take it that way at all. It's been a long time since I was on here to answer any questions for everyone, so it just spewed out. Ask away.

Just to give you an idea on distances of where we have teams and where there is interest, and I will use Philadelphia as the hub:
Phila to DC- 3 hours
Phila to NOVA- 3 1/2 hours
Phila to NYC-2 hours
Phila to RIR- 5 1/2 hours
Phila to Boston- 6 1/2 hours
Phila to Jax-12 1/2 hours
Phila to Central FLA-14 1/2 hours
Phila to Atlanta, GA-12 1/2 hours
Phila to Chicago, IL- 12 1/4 hours
Phila to Dallas, TX-22 1/2 hours
Phila to Charlotte, NC-8 1/2 hours

So you can see why things can be very hard to get started when you have to fly everywhere and those costs are considerably more than driving. That's why the only way for us to make things work is smaller conferences and 5-6 hour trips in a van at most. DC to Boston is almost 10 hours so that is brutal on the boys up and back.

The Fight's trip to Jax every year cost us in Excess of $12,000 on avg with flights, hotels, vans, and meals. Not easy to come up with once, let alone a bunch of times per year when you are getting $500 sponsorship's at a time and not $10,000 or $15,000 Title sponsors. I only ever got one for that kind of money and it only lasted 1 year because they couldn't see the return on investment.

It's an uphill road that we will keep climbing mate.

Thanks for the response Ryan. It's just frustration and ignorance of the problems you have that initiated my OP. I'm far from a millennial and don't really use social media and the website is what I (rightly or wrongly) use to form my impression of the progress, or otherwise, of the game in the USA. It's difficult to appreciate the distances involved when you live in a country where the vast majority of rugby league towns and cities are a couple of hours away at the most. Sorry if I came across as overly critical. As I said earlier it's just frustration.
 

Golden point

Juniors
Messages
456
DP,

I didn't take it that way at all. It's been a long time since I was on here to answer any questions for everyone, so it just spewed out. Ask away.

Just to give you an idea on distances of where we have teams and where there is interest, and I will use Philadelphia as the hub:
Phila to DC- 3 hours
Phila to NOVA- 3 1/2 hours
Phila to NYC-2 hours
Phila to RIR- 5 1/2 hours
Phila to Boston- 6 1/2 hours
Phila to Jax-12 1/2 hours
Phila to Central FLA-14 1/2 hours
Phila to Atlanta, GA-12 1/2 hours
Phila to Chicago, IL- 12 1/4 hours
Phila to Dallas, TX-22 1/2 hours
Phila to Charlotte, NC-8 1/2 hours

So you can see why things can be very hard to get started when you have to fly everywhere and those costs are considerably more than driving. That's why the only way for us to make things work is smaller conferences and 5-6 hour trips in a van at most. DC to Boston is almost 10 hours so that is brutal on the boys up and back.

The Fight's trip to Jax every year cost us in Excess of $12,000 on avg with flights, hotels, vans, and meals. Not easy to come up with once, let alone a bunch of times per year when you are getting $500 sponsorship's at a time and not $10,000 or $15,000 Title sponsors. I only ever got one for that kind of money and it only lasted 1 year because they couldn't see the return on investment.

It's an uphill road that we will keep climbing mate.
Omg! I had no idea the effort that you go to. Good work! Good thing you got the southern conference going!
Seems that you just need a good marketing boost, I hope that the world Cup gets some press and sparks up some interest and you get the sponsors you need.
I hope you guys are pushing hard to get some network coverage of the world Cup or at least the usa games. This will generate some awareness at least.
 

deal.with.it

Juniors
Messages
2,086
Ryan, are you still involved with the fight? Is Peter Ilfield?

Thanks for the update and all your hard work. Until the rlif funds an USARL development manager, things probably won't progress. You need gov and corpororate money - and thats a full time job. Then you can hire more dev officers to build your conferences and support that volunteer run clubs
 

Fighter

Juniors
Messages
284
Peter and I are no longer with the Fight. It's been a few years now, but my heart is still with the team so it pains me to see them suffering this year. A lot of turnover of older players and no imports has hurt them.

And you hit it right on the head about funding and development.

Ryan, are you still involved with the fight? Is Peter Ilfield?

Thanks for the update and all your hard work. Until the rlif funds an USARL development manager, things probably won't progress. You need gov and corpororate money - and thats a full time job. Then you can hire more dev officers to build your conferences and support that volunteer run clubs
 

ed612313

Juniors
Messages
332
"the most congested sports market in the world"? Where? America? Really? I thought Australia was?
Either way ive always looked forward to the US National team playing and kept a view of the domestic comp from afar and am somewhat surprised League hasnt taken off more than it has in the US... Hopefully one day :)
Thanks for your effort Ryan and thanks for updating the forum.
 
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