The topic of an American professional rugby competition has been discussed endlessly. Over the past several years, the American rugby community has gotten excited over several league ideas that eventually failed to launch. Why are these leagues not materializing? How can one actually launch in the future?
The leagues have failed to launch in the past, because organizers have been overly ambitious. The idea of immediately having a national level competition, where teams are traveling nationwide every weekend, in a nation as big as the United States, is simply unreasonable. The money needed from investors, ticket revenue, advertising revenue, and television revenue would simply not be there. If a league under that national format were to get off the ground, it would almost immediately fold.
Additionally, leagues have proposed changes to the basic rules of rugby. The idea of going to twenty-minute quarters has been thrown around. Using posts at the back of the in-goal area has also been thrown around, so that American football stadiums could be used. This has drawn the ire of the already established American rugby community.
With those past problems in mind, how could an American Pro Rugby Competition launch in the future?
First and foremost, it would have to be a slow process. The league would have to not immediately resemble the NBA or the NFL in terms of competition format. Instead, the system of smaller regional leagues, in a way similar to Minor League Baseball, would have to be used. That way, teams would be able to best capitalize on local advertising, television, and publicity, before breaking into the tougher national market. Additionally, costs would be significantly lower, as teams would only have to travel on a bus several hours to matches, instead of flying across the country. The key here would be much lower startup costs, thus many fewer investors needed and greater chance the league would survive.
The leagues could be organized as the Western League (California, Oregon, Washington); the Southwest League (Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada); the South League (Southern states, plus Texas); the Midwest League (Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota); and the Northeast League (New York City area, DC area, and Pennsylvania). These all encompass areas that would be considered hotbeds for rugby in America. Eventually, as the leagues grow, and revenue increases, they could merge to create larger competitions.
Under this format there could still be a national playoff system, where the winners of each regional league and a wild card would enter a playoff system very similar to Super Rugby. However, initially to keep costs low teams would play the entire regular season within their region.
Secondly, the basic rules of rugby would have to stay intact, so that there could be full support from the already existing American rugby community. Posts would be in the proper position, and 40-minute halves would be maintained.
If a few wealthy investors were to implement the above system, taking into account the failures of the past, a professional rugby competition would surely be able to survive. In a nation where there are even professional paintball competitions, there is no acceptable explanation as to why there is no professional rugby competition.
In the current state of American rugby, the smaller a professional competition that could start, the bigger it could become.
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