you may call it beautiful but i like to think of sydney as the sewer of the south pacific... overflowing with scum and low life.

That's not true. The old American Football League started in 1960 with 8 teams (and a TV contract with NBC).

The college game may be faster, but televised NCAA games have just as many ad breaks as NFL ones.



College football players are the guys to target rather than union players. There are literally thousands in the college ranks for every one that makes it to the NFL. RL could conceivably give Americans their football fix in the NFL and NCAA off-season.

There are enough people in the US of A to have 26 major sports. League, with it's funtime showdowns should go down a storm.



I hope it takes off, but if it did, it would instantly blow us into 4th in the world internationally. There are more and better athletes available to each state in America than there are to the whole RL youth system in this country.



Another thing I can't wait for is the new terminology. I can't see them shouting, "Gerrum onside yerrr berk" at the officials.

He went to Australia and tried to work his way up through the ranks at Burleigh. Little was heard about him after that -- I'd imagine he found the lower ranks in Australia q huge change from the Big 12 with its' big crowds and great gameday atmosphere.



Reviewing that debate, I noticed lots of postings showing little understanding of how big American football is in the US. If American RL could attract even a fraction of the audience and sponsorship it has, the game would be well established there.

Television is also the reason the NFL has more money than almost any other pro sports league in the world. It has deals with 4 different networks that pay it $3 billion a year.

Agreed. I think I read somewhere that something like 30,000 college football players graduate annually and don't get Pro contracts. If American RL could just attract 0.1% of this pool annually that would be 30 potential players per year to pick from for a league of 8 teams. Wouldn't take long to start generating real interest.

That's slightly off. Between the NCAA and NAIA there are 716 schools with football teams, and they carry about 80 players each. That's over 57,000 players total. Every year about 1/4 would graduate or use up their eligibility to play, so more than 14,000 players move on every year. Fewer than 500 get a shot at playing pro, and there's very little open-age American football due to the costs of the sport. The rest constitute a huge pool of potential players.



College football is extremely popular too. The season before last the NCAA's 619 schools attracted 48,751,861 fans to their games. Millions more watch the schools in "Bix Six" conferences on TV on Saturdays too. That's a huge potential audience for American RL.

Fucking hell I can see it now. These septic tanks and all their bull phrases. Imagine the US version of Stevo!?





I can see the following american terms being used in favour of the traditional ones:



Violation of the offence Territory - Offside

Punt Return - Drop Out

Re-engerziation Period (note, with a "zeee"icon_wink.gif - Half Time

Deeefensive Lineman - Full Back

Quarterback - Scrum Half

Illegal Motion - Forward Pass

Illegal Procedure - Knock On

Wide Reciever - Ian Roberts

Don't talk like that about where you came from !

right now im looking up at the sun



when i was in london in summer for the first 4 days there i couldnt say that



if the weather isnt bad enough over there, there are loads of union trolls (such as yourself) polluting out the place



thankfully over here union trolls, like actual fans, are a rarity

be nice dally...

i dont do charity

like sydney city roosters

be nice mate, they just got belted on the weekend











FMD it was brilliant. i almost dislike them as much as the waratahs or swans

If they have a pro 8 team league what are the players going to do for the other 38 weeks of the year?? The Championship 1 is only just viable with 10 teams and the clubs at least have 4 Northern Rail Cup games and the Challenge Cup sa well. How are the American clubs gonna maintain any level of public interest when the teams will not be playing for 3/4 the year?

You do know who the new Widnes coach is, don't you?

The Aussie soccer comp is an 8 team league.

The NFL only has 16 regular season games. Plus in the USA it's not compulsory to have play everyone twice as your fixture schedule, so there could be any number of teams. But seems a bit ridiculous complaining if an 8 team pro RL comp comes off the ground in the USA because it's 8 more than now

Following the collapse of a few Major League Lacrosse teams, they will have only six teams this year, the same number it had until a few years ago. And that is a sport which has live weekly coverage on ESPN so the sort of thing rugby league would need to have ambitions of aiming to emulate.



Michael.

It might help if they target cities that don't have major sports franchises but do have popular college football teams. If they play during the off season and try to recruit from college football teams then that would certainly peak local interest.

aussie cricket league is 6 isnt it?

yes 6 teams

For now they can target gridiron players that don't make it, yes. But they will never be a force in the RL world if they continue to do this as the players will not have developed many of the skills needed to play RL and will most likely not have enough time to master them to as extent that they will become expert. They need to get people playing in schools to develop this earlier. That will obviously come with time, but the way people are talking it appears that they think they will be able to build a competitive team out of gridiron converts which in most likeliness will not be the case. They may be good athletes, but that doesn't mean they'll be good RL players.