Big Picture

I'd suggest a rule along the same line as in lacrosse, i.e. that something like 75-80% of a team's roster must be citizens and the rest must be eligible to become citizens. That way every national team would be legitimate. Before anyone responds with the claim that few countries could field competitive teams that way, note that a good many countries allow citizenship based on ancestry, so in many cases the same heritage players playing international RL today could legitimize themselves by taking out citizenship in the countries they're representing on that basis.

You do know that Fiji, Tonga and Samoa are teams full of heritage players just like Ireland and Scotland, right?

Their lineup as given in the stream had 15 players with Anglo last names and three players with Latino last names, so it looks like it was strictly a heritage team.

You're absolutely right about the need for big investors, without that no RL competition over here could ever attract the sort of money to make an impact. A league backed by principals who "cashed in their mortgages and their kids' education funds" as Rob Curtis was recorded telling the players at Cleveland's combine is a long way short of clearing the bar.

The same route which other sports have taken here: a top-down franchised fully pro major league with the franchises sold to big-money investors who'll get the same legal rights, support from the league office as they set up their franchise, etc. which they'd get if they bought an expansion franchise in one of the established major pro leagues. Of course such a league would need a unique selling point to stand out from those other major pro leagues, especially as the vast majority over here don't even know that two versions of rugby exist.

Interesting statement that. Rob Curtis' phrasing and terminology there suggests to me that the whole thing is geared to appeal to overseas followers of the game to find investment and sponsorship rather than to North Americans. Whether that approach can work remains to be seen, but I'm skeptical that it can. I see it says that they have "plans to host a number of exhibition games in the US", it will be interesting to see if those come off.

I highly doubt that it was there. I saw a video on Facebook a little while ago now of Rob Curtis speaking to the players at (if I recall correctly) Cleveland's combine. He told them that he decided to get involved because the league's principals "cashed in their mortgages and their kids' education funds" for this. That doesn't really sound like well-heeled backers does it?

The North American Rugby League cancels debut season, Brian Lowe's report for Rugby League Planet.

Brazil also has a population of more than 200 million and more than a dozen TV networks, and Brazilian TV already pays big money for the rights to broadcast sports. The Brasileirão's deal with Rede Globo, Esporte Interativo and Premiere paid them 1.032 billion R$ or 199 million US$ in 2019.

It does indeed, did you notice that he considers SL a minor league?

It's the result of all the rule changes made during the past 25 years and the weird obsession with making the game flow as rapidly as possible, that's made it too easy for teams to advance the ball down the field and into scoring position. The result is teams having to defend their goal line a lot more nowadays and conceding a lot more points.

Yes that would indeed be interesting wouldn't it. Something tells me that it's very few if any.

For those interested, Paul Kallee Grover's profile at the Leadership Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Shan Dassanaike's profile at the Leith Group.

Some more discussion on this.

Precisely, just as they should have been doing all along. Refs should never ignore the rules.