www.usarl.com/2015/01/usa-rugby- ... -14-teams/ This sounds like the league playing community has finally come together to put on a proper, unified competition that takes in a big part of the East of the country. Still no word on a comp in the west after all these years. Dividing it into 3 conferences will cut down on costs for everyone involved. No one should have to travel huge distances till the finals. I predict we'll go back several years to before the split and see a New York Knights V Jacksonville Axemen grand final.

www.usarl.com/2015/01/usa-rugby- ... -14-teams/ This sounds like the league playing community has finally come together to put on a proper, unified competition that takes in a big part of the East of the country. Still no word on a comp in the west after all these years. Dividing it into 3 conferences will cut down on costs for everyone involved. No one should have to travel huge distances till the finals. I predict we'll go back several years to before the split and see a New York Knights V Jacksonville Axemen grand final.

League certainly has potential in America. Supposedly its the game most similar to American football so maybe a lot of people over there will play league and become interested in going to games for this reason. A lot of school kids might play league before moving up to American footie and some would stay in rugby you'd think.

Does anyone know any attendance figures for the usarl? Are there actually a lot of Americans going or is it more Brits and Aussies who live over there?

Awaits gutters coming on telling us how this is a pub team comp and how much bigger the union game is lol.

Good news for the development t of the game stateside, hopefully it will now kick on.

Guttersnipe is an Irish expat who knows nothing about America. But that won't stop him from opining.

This development, under the influence of Spinner Howland, is a great step forward. Next step should be a mid-west conference built around Chicago, and a west Coast division built around Los Angeles-San Diego and San Francisco-Oakland.

Not sure if I should feel flattered or concerned by your stalking?

Good news in the USA......

How many 'Brits and Aussies' do you think live in America?

Approx 350,000 Brits and approx 65,000 Aussies live in the usa.

Point I was making was that the attendances probably aren't huge in America and in bigger cities like Boston and new York it might be that new American fans aren't necessarily being attracted to games and that people who already know about the sport are the ones going. Key to expansion is bringing in new fans.

Why do you think that would be the case? Are Brits and Aussies the only people in the world capable of enjoying a great sport? More importantly, how many existing RL fans do you think know that clubs even exist in places like Boston and New York?

Not having a go BTW, I just see this kind of thing all the time and don't understand the mentality. Is it really that hard to believe that people from other countries like and play RL?

A lot of the clubs were started by Australians. David Niu started the whole thing off and the first club. He is a Saint George local and played firstgrade for them.
Matt Astill started the New York Knights. He is a former Manly lower grader.
Spinner Howland is from Qld and played in the Qld cup.
The chairman of the USARL, Peter Illfield is a coach from the Newcastle region in NSW.
etc etc etc

But after 15 years of the game being played in America, the vast majority of players are American born. My guess would be between 80 and 90% American locals.

The oddest origin of a team is Boston 13s was started by some students who learnt the game in Lebanese Universities and went on to further their studies in the US.

It's an amateur leagues isnt it? Why would we expect them to be getting crowds?
Getting the game into universities would be the next big step forward, maybe using touch footy as the vehicle?

anywhere outside of Australia that has been claimed by IRB as a union keep fit scheme.

If any country was to like high impact collisions and a tough sport its probably the Americans its crazy how unpopular soccer/football still is and how long it has taken for soccer/football to make an impact. Plus they have amazing wrestling programmes in the US i wonder if that will have an effect on some people.

Jacksonville Axemen get bigger crowds than the majority of Championship teams.

There is certain website with lots of action from the USA leagues plus elsewhere along the extended M62.

Take your blinkers off and have a look. It's "THE GREATEST GAME ON EARTH" being played.

Always remember there is never a poor /bad/awful game of Rugby League ,just that some are better than others.

With that in mind, watch and enjoy just like the people involved with the games.

It's not hard to believe Americans like rugby league at all and I'm not saying its a bad thing if it is british and Australians going to the games cos this will increase attendances. If you look at the MLS, a good percentage of people that go to that are Latin Americans who come from traditional football countries, doesn't matter who is going to these leagues. Its notoriously hard for a new sport to break into American cos its so dominated by their big four so I'm not expecting loads of people to go to rugby league, I'm literally just wondering how many do go that's all, I would expect maybe a few hundred each game?

In terms of your other question, I would imagine that existing rugby league fans will know about this league over non existing fans cos existing fans would seek games out. If I was in Boston (and I have been to two Boston 13s games) I would seek a team out as a league fan, see if there was any games on while I was there. I'm not questioning the fan base, I was literally just wondering who makes it up that's all?

I love it when people say football isn't as popular as the big 4 in the US despite getting bigger crowds than both NHL and MLB