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

The south east conference is where we might see good numbers in future years.
The Jacksonville Axemen have been working hard at attracting crowds for many years and get crowds between 1 and 2 thousand regularly.
Over the last few years they have managed to get 3 other clubs started within easy travelling distance of Jacksonville, and last year and this year they have basically played in their own local conference.
I think it's very possible in the next few years that we will see all these sides gather a good fan base and we will see fans travelling to different cities.
Spinner Howland seems to have developed a fan base by getting out in the local media at every opportunity, and he will no doubt help the other sides in the conference do the same thing.
The recent game involving Leeds in Jacksonville got a crowd as well due to plenty of local marketing, and all the local clubs had their "star" players showcased in that game too.
Marketing is the key, and it is happening in the south east.

Soccer is nowhere near as popular as baseball.

Sorry, my mistake. I knew it was 2 of the big 4 it had higher attendances, just mistaken on which it is. It averages more than the NHL and the NBA.

Because they play in Arena's which generally don't have a larger capacity than around 20,000. The nature of those sports limit the game day attendance. What a crazy attempt at a comparison of popularity. TV ratings, media coverage and annual revenues would show the big 4 are the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL.

I'd place College Basketball and College Football ahead of soccer too....
That said, soccer has grown massively in the USA, mainly on the back of some huge investment. For sports to grow "organically" as we would need League to, schools and universities are where you need to start. Of the 450,000 registered players claimed by USA Union, 70,000 or so are in High Schools......and they have 900 College Teams.

Best chance for League is to get this new structure bedded in for a couple of years and then try to get the clubs involved in promoting the games to High Schools in their areas.

Pretty much agree with all of that

It is very important to build a strong regional base for the game, before starting to spread the wings throughout the country. Spinner Howland is a real dynamo for the game's development in the southeast. Hopefully the Northeast conference and the mid-Atlantic can emulate him. Intensification of current bases of activity should be the immediate priority.

However I hope that the heads of the USARL are looking forward to expansion. Chicago, Texas (Houston and Dallas), Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake City (where there are numerous Polynesians), San Francisco, Los Angeles and perhaps Seattle should be the priorities if the game is to make the greatest possible leap up to a commercial TV contract. David Niu promised a national league with a national TV contract, but it turned out to be a false promise. That should not keep such a plan from being a medium to long term goal.

That's the dumbest comparison, what do you expect when comparing an outdoor code of football to an indoor sport?

What happened to the proposed Canadian Champs franchise btw?