TheReaper

To be fair, when you google both "north american rugby league" and "narl", the league's website isn't even on the first page of results

Neither, I'm just someone who has travelled to the US for sports before. The last thing you want to happen is breaking your leg or something and end up on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars of medical care. Which means the first thing you do, before you register for events or book your flights, is figure out insurance. And that's just to look after yourself. When you're the organizer of an event, and there for responsible (and liable) for much more, the importance only goes up.

The pandemic's been going on for over a year, you'd think you'd want make sure insurance is lined up before announcing the league.

They did historically, but almost every "established" sport around the world got that way in late 19th/early 20th century when it was essentially a vacuum, and has been extremely difficult to change since then. Soccer has only recently managed to become sustainably mainstream at the pro level in North America, and it had the advantage of being the most popular sport in the world AND has been an amateur sport here the entire time. As has been pointed out many times, the NHL's expansion across the American south, and I'd also add the explosion in the popularity of basketball followi

That's gotta be the weirdest part yet?

Then I guess it's a good thing they don't claim to be the New York City Freedom, eh? White Plains is in New York.

Thought this was gonna be a kit for a New England team

Would he? I think he knows exactly what he's doing.

It may be the only sport that uses 13 players, but relatively few sports actually share numbers of players, IMO it's not particularly notable. 5 - Basketball 6- Hockey, Volleyball, Handball 7 - Rugby 7s, Water Polo, Netball, Handball 9 - Rugby 9s, Baseball 10- Lacrosse 11 - Soccer, American Football, Cricket, Field Hockey 12 - Canadian Football 13 - Rugby League 15 - Rugby Union, Gaelic Football, Hurling 18 - Australian Football

Precisely

Idk, Team Yugoslavia has a nice ring to it...

RUNY isn't there this year, but neither will RL: " But Rugby United New York is facing major challenges. Due to the pandemic, they lost their home stadium, MCU Park in Coney Island where the Mets Minor League affiliate, the Brooklyn Cyclones play, and where the Mets will have an alternate site due to continued health protocols in Major League Baseball. Ric Salizzo, Rugby United’s Senior Consultant says, "Because of COVID, there's been some changes to the minor league schedule. So we normally would play our games at MCU Park, but it's no longer available for us." https://w

Well damn, that settles it. The only people who can learn to play rugby are those who already know how to play rugby.

Offense and Defence, both sides of the ball. Just because a guy is for example a linebacker at a pro level, doesn't mean he's only played linebacker his whole life. Many high schools don't have enough players for them to specialize.

Forgot to say. If every team is full of crossover athletes, it doesn't particularly matter how quickly or not they adapt to RL, if they're all at a similar level, games will be competitive. Relative skill matter more than absolute skill.