Could you imagine if RL were to be a success in the US. All of the star players would disappear over there, the ruling body would soon be American, there'd be numerous rule changes to suit TV advertising requirements etc etc. So, be careful what you wish for.

Nonsense, football has been successful over there.

Yes, but football is a much larger fish than RL. There is no lack of money in the European game and the player pool is big enough to accommodate any US requirements.

Rugby League in the UK would be a sitting duck, the game here doesn’t, have much value or stature unless mushy peas is a top brand in the USA.

So you don’t want to take the game to the USA and Canada because you’re worried they will be better than us in the future, talk about a small town attitude.

It's not small town to consider the possibility that there would fewer and fewer RL clubs to watch and support in this country if we're not careful.

Football started in this country but is now a global sport, has that resulted in fewer football clubs in this country?

Rugby Union also started in this country but is now played across many countries, has this led to a decline in Rugby Union in this country?

And did those two sports spend their time trying to shoe horn in foreign teams (outside of the UK) into their domestic leagues at the expense of established clubs?

Yes Rugby Union created the Pro 12 league with teams from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy. Obviously when the league was created teams in the top flight Irish, Scottish and Welsh leagues missed out on getting into the Pro 12 league.

The Super 15’s league was expanded to include teams from Aus, NZ, South Africa, Argentina and Japan. Other NZ or Aus teams could have been added instead of teams from Argentina and Japan.

I imagine prior to those competitions said countries had their own domestic leagues set up?

Hahahaha, what absolute nonsense. Please give some valid reasoning to support your ridiculous notions!
Even if RL was to have a modicum of success it would take at least 2 decades to get it to have a a two tier comp. Just because it [imight[/i become popular does not in any way mean that a governing/ruling body would be 'American', the International Federation is made up of various cohorts, the US would have its own ruling body and how they use advertising for the game would be up to them. For internationals/cross country games you have an agreed format.
You're so far off the mark that you've embarrassed yourself.

Ireland did (and still does) have a national championship as well as individual province comps.......as did Scotland and Wales. Not too sure of the overall strength of Union in Italy at Club level but the fact that they have over 1,000 clubs currently points to them having some pedigree. Argentina has a strong history of club comps.....but their senior players traditionally sought to join European clubs once the game turned openly professional. Other countries like Romania had some club comps, but again many of the Romanians sought employment in France once the Iron curtain fell.......even Japan has a rich history of Club Unon, so no....to answer the question, Union didn't "shoehorn" alien nations into their domestic comps like Toronto are being squeezed in at all costs now.
On the topic of 19,000 announced as the gate...that's 25% capacity, which begs the question as to why did they choose such a cavernous stadium? A couple of American guys I met when they were here for the URWC 2011 went to the game sporting their warriors shirts that I made them buy

Look what they did to rugby in the 1800s, Gridiron anyone ?

BEST POSSIBLE NEW ZEALAND TEAM (barring injury)Roger Tuivasa-Sheck

Dallin Watene-Zelesniak, Dean Whare, Esan Masters, Jordan Rapana,

Te Maire Martin
Shaun Johnson

Adam Blair
Kevin Proctor, Tohu Harris
Jesse Bromwich, Isaac Luke, Martin Tapau[/i

Interchange Jared Waerea-Hargreaves. Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Joseph Tapine, Danny Levi
[/i

Players missing on Saturday in Denver are in blue.

This proves that a majority of their top 17 were missing from the New Zealand team.
England will have to perform much better in October to get close to the top New Zealand team.

England were missing quality too, Hodgson, George BURGESS, Watkins & Walmsley would all strengthen them. Hardaker, Gale and Tomkins would possibly too.