Hemel and New York

[Cdd]

Rugby League fans - “Any new Canadian teams must have Canadians on their roster”

Perez proposes putting Canadians in the new team despite knowing that North American sport doesn’t rely at all on this...

Also RL fans - “These Canadians aren’t good enough, what a load of rubbish”

You can’t win with people who’ve already made their mind up about whether expansion is going to succeed or fail.

Its understandable I suppose for people who have seen expansion into places like Wales and Newcastle fail. I’ve had to accept that North America is a completely different market and can’t be judged with the same yardstick as we would judge it in the UK. 

[Jayme2020]

19 minutes ago, westside said:

EORU is a pretty strong rugby area.

Much stronger then people think it is.

[Jayme2020]

5 hours ago, scotchy1 said:

Its an interesting question regarding conversion of RU players. There are relatively few Canadians good enough for premiership RU, there are going to be even fewer good enough at a different version of the sport to switch.

However the thing is that, like NFL/CFL players, they are different skillsets and what makes an RU player or NFL/CFL player average or worse at that sport might be what makes them good RL players. An RL player doesnt need to be a great RU player, they need to be a great RL player. Its certainly possible that there are RU/CFL/NFL players who arent the best at their sport but would be fantastic RL players.

Ottawa and TWP should be going to events like the Football Canada Cup which this year is in Kingston and the Spalding Cup that's in Montreal the interesting thing about the Spalding Cup is Ottawa use to be part of the Eastern Ontario team but this year there will be a Ottawa team.

[bbfaz]

32 minutes ago, Jayme2020 said:

Much stronger then people think it is.

Seriously, it's this level of banging your head against a brick wall that has sent Parky mad.

[Dave T]

Some of the best Rugby League players I have ever seen came from Rugby Union. Our sport suits some players more than others, there will be plenty knocking around playing RU who could do a good job in top flight RL. Without question.

[Kayakman]

42 minutes ago, bbfaz said:

Seriously, it's this level of banging your head against a brick wall that has sent Parky mad.

Maybe if people finally tried listening and learning there would not be a problem...the truth is out there but wearing a tin hat doesn't help anyone....LISTEN! 

[North but south]

I look at new talent as a numbers game. The average child in the UK stops playing sports by the age of 14. This Is a major concern across multiple sports that have high junior participation but maintaining that beyond the age of 14 into senior participation is difficult.  I'm assuming sports culture in Canada is similar to the USA, where I've got some figures.

Boys playing American football at high school in the USA is 1,057,382. 73,063 (6.9%) went on to play at college. In 2017 16,236 were eligible for the draft. Of these 16,236 only 253 were drafted (1.6%) and 1.9% remained in the game. That's a lot of good athletes that could be attempted to try to be converted. 

The NFL has the international player pathway program. This year 7 players are being placed with NFL  teams. The players have already completed a 3 month training course to teach them how to play to the required level. From these players the teams select who they believe could play the sport at the required level. The player doesn't count as part of the salary cap and is granted an additional place not counted on the maximum player roster. The players are also protect for 1 year from being released to allow them a chance to get up to speed.

Something similar could be done for rugby league and makes more sense than expecting someone to suddenly be able to play at the level of a senior pro and allows talent from other sports time.

[fighting irish]

Yes Dave T you are absolutely right. Its certainly true in Wales.

The trick is getting them to play in the first place and to stick with it.

Canada may react like Wales, (slowly) although I don't think the Canadians are as fanatical (about RU) as the Welsh RU following but, face it, you've got two ways to do this.

Grow them from the ground up (takes 20 to 30 years, developing the Amateur clubs/game) or encourage players from other sports to play (which can be achieved quickly if its attractive enough for them to get involved). I believe you/we have to do both at the same time and that is what is being done in Wales, albeit on a shoestring budget.

It sickens me to hear posters saying that Wales and Newcastle have been failures. What we have is the result of years of work, by dedicated people on shoestring budget in what is (probably) the most hostile (anti rugby league) environment on the planet. Fans from the heartlands should be cheering them on, instead of dismissing them as failures. You try doing it!

Its a work-in-progress. Maybe Canada/USA can speed the process up. 

[fighting irish]

What the game needs in Britain, is one hundred Hemel Hempstead's 

[bbfaz]

26 minutes ago, Kayakman said:

Maybe if people finally tried listening and learning there would not be a problem...the truth is out there but wearing a tin hat doesn't help anyone....LISTEN! 

I don't see a lot of truth.  I see a lot of supposition.  Supposition isn't truth.  Creating a hypothesis isn't the same as testing a hypothesis.  I would know, I've done that plenty of times.  Unlike a lot of people here, I actually created a club in an expansion area that's doing reasonably well.  I had a hypothesis, it was sorta kinda right but not the level and volume I hoped.  Now we're looking to take that to the next level and hope it brings the rewards I convinced myself were there.

As I said before; don't sing it, bring it.  Test the hypothesis.  Get out there and prove it.  However, don't pass off hopes or opinion or conjecture as fact.  That's counter-productive to your argument.

[Dr Tim Whatley]

18 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

What the game needs in Britain, is one hundred Hemel Hempstead's 

I live in the one we have now and I beg to differ.

[Tommygilf]

10 minutes ago, Dr Tim Whatley said:

I live in the one we have now and I beg to differ.

I think what he's trying to say is that if the game in the UK was strong enough to support 100 Hemel sized teams it'd be a sign we'd have a hell of a lot more general support and profile than we do now.

[Damien]

36 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

What the game needs in Britain, is one hundred Hemel Hempstead's 

I've said this many times. We should be aiming for clubs in every town and city up and down the land. It does not matter how big or small but each one expands the sport and it's footprint.

[fighting irish]

7 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I think what he's trying to say is that if the game in the UK was strong enough to support 100 Hemel sized teams it'd be a sign we'd have a hell of a lot more general support and profile than we do now.

Hiya Tommy, thanks for the positive comment. In some respects you've got the cart before the horse. What I'm saying is that if we created a hundred Hemel Hempsteads, embedded in their communities we'd have a much stronger game altogether. More schools, more teachers involved, more colleges, more juniors, more senior players, more elite players, (no more worries about the number of class players available to Super League clubs) more fans, more television subscribers, more people at Wembley,  more businesses interested in sponsoring our events and tournaments. More money! Bigger events, bigger bloody everything. I wish we'd stop expecting something for nothing. Build the game at every level. Stop neglecting our supply lines as if they don't matter.

 

[fighting irish]

31 minutes ago, Dr Tim Whatley said:

I live in the one we have now and I beg to differ.

Now that's really interesting. Why Dr. Tim? Pray tell?

[Dr Tim Whatley]

2 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

Now that's really interesting. Why Dr. Tim? Pray tell?

I'm only joshing. Hemel Stags are a fine example of what can be done. I don't think they were ever really cut out for the pro game but as an amateur club they've done great work for a long time.

Looking forward to heading down for a game or two over the summer (and it really does need to be summer as Pennine Way seems to have a micro-climate which makes it about five degrees colder and windier than anywhere else in the town!)

[bbfaz]

23 minutes ago, Damien said:

I've said this many times. We should be aiming for clubs in every town and city up and down the land. It does not matter how big or small but each one expands the sport and it's footprint.

A place to start would be aiming to have a team for every two reasonable-sized boroughs/districts in the country. So that might be a team in High Wycombe and one in Aylesbury. A team in Salisbury, as well as Chippenham and Swindon. Newark as well as Nottingham. I've said in the past that if every team who played in Kent came back at the same time, there would be a brilliant a vibrant league. They just turn up at the wrong time. 

[Onieda FC]

On 3/23/2019 at 9:33 AM, Big Picture said:

In that case, any franchise set up in New York needs a drawcard(s) suitable to the task of drawing New Yorkers to Red Bull Arena and it better make sure that they all have a great time at the matches so they want to come back again.  I don't see any such drawcard(s) within the existing RFL structure with so many teams in places New Yorkers have never even heard of.

That's been one of my main concerns about NYCRL playing in Red Bull Arena since the start. I have no idea how you lure people across the river to watch games in a sport unknown to them vs. Oldham, Hunslet, Whitehaven, et al when the Red Bulls have an issue doing it in a much more popular sport vs. teams from Philadelphia, Chicago, and DC. 

You are absolutely right about the making sure the game day experience is top notch. The Wolfpack are lucky in that they have access to a small community stadium, in the city, easy to get to. They make it a party atmosphere with beer gardens, live DJ, etc. None of that is possible in a professional, top-level stadium like Red Bull Arena. 5,000 people (which would be a great turnout) will get lost in there, and will seem like an empty house. 

This was an announced crowd of nearly 7,000 last year in the CONCACAF Champions League:

 

[Onieda FC]

1 hour ago, North but south said:

I look at new talent as a numbers game. The average child in the UK stops playing sports by the age of 14. This Is a major concern across multiple sports that have high junior participation but maintaining that beyond the age of 14 into senior participation is difficult.  I'm assuming sports culture in Canada is similar to the USA, where I've got some figures.

Boys playing American football at high school in the USA is 1,057,382. 73,063 (6.9%) went on to play at college. In 2017 16,236 were eligible for the draft. Of these 16,236 only 253 were drafted (1.6%) and 1.9% remained in the game. That's a lot of good athletes that could be attempted to try to be converted. 

The NFL has the international player pathway program. This year 7 players are being placed with NFL  teams. The players have already completed a 3 month training course to teach them how to play to the required level. From these players the teams select who they believe could play the sport at the required level. The player doesn't count as part of the salary cap and is granted an additional place not counted on the maximum player roster. The players are also protect for 1 year from being released to allow them a chance to get up to speed.

Something similar could be done for rugby league and makes more sense than expecting someone to suddenly be able to play at the level of a senior pro and allows talent from other sports time.

Thank you, exactly. Can't like this post enough.

It's a numbers game. This is a huge potential player pool. College athletes here are trained in facilities that shame anything in professional RL in either Australia or England. They're used to playing in front of massive crowds- there are 8 stadiums in North America of 100,000+ capacity and they are all for college football. These are, for all intents and purposes, professional level athletes playing a game similar in many ways to RL. Surely some could be converted.  

Pro teams here with reserve teams and junior grades to scoop up the high schoolers who don't get accepted to college football programs, the college players who don't drafted into the NFL or catch on in the CFL, the numbers and potential are huge....

[OriginalMrC]

There is very likely untapped resources in Canada and many fine athletes who could potentially make it into the game. That is all it is at the moment though. The idea that CFL or RU players could be converted to make a competitive league one team is a bit of stretch. No matter how good they are as athletes they have no experience playing high level RL and would likely get pumped every week. The USA RL team has been packed with big physical athletes for years and have struggled to make an impact internationally because many of their players don't have a know how to compete against experienced players. 

Despite what Perez says Ottawa will need experienced RL players at least at first. I say all this as someone who very much wants a second Canadian team but let's be realistic for a moment.

[Onieda FC]

4 hours ago, Cdd said:

Rugby League fans - “Any new Canadian teams must have Canadians on their roster”

Perez proposes putting Canadians in the new team despite knowing that North American sport doesn’t rely at all on this...

Also RL fans - “These Canadians aren’t good enough, what a load of rubbish”

Exactly- gives the game away. It's knee-jerk anti-North American expansion. 

Quote

Its understandable I suppose for people who have seen expansion into places like Wales and Newcastle fail. I’ve had to accept that North America is a completely different market and can’t be judged with the same yardstick as we would judge it in the UK. 

The PTSD, for lack of a better term, that seems to impact rugby league after expansion teams go bust is beyond me. Sports here suffer expansion failures all the time, there is a long history. It doesn't stop them trying. MLS's first attempt at a second LA team resulted in a wreck of a team that ended with lawsuits about discrimination. The team was folded, but MLS went right back with a new team- which is doing well.

"That's soccer in LA, though, that's a new sport in a new territory." 

OK, fair, let's look at the NHL- the US sport that expands consistently into new territories. Ice hockey is really only culturally a huge deal in Canada, New England, the Rockies, and Minnesota (high school right up to pros). The NHL pushed into Atlanta, Georgia twice and it failed both times (Atlanta Flames moved to Calgary in 1980, Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg in 2011). It didn't stop them from putting a team in Las Vegas, another virgin territory for ice hockey, just last year. It's going pretty well.

You don't give up because something didn't work somewhere. You try again, or else you stagnate. 

[Jayme2020]

13 minutes ago, OriginalMrC said:

There is very likely untapped resources in Canada and many fine athletes who could potentially make it into the game. That is all it is at the moment though. The idea that CFL or RU players could be converted to make a competitive league one team is a bit of stretch. No matter how good they are as athletes they have no experience playing high level RL and would likely get pumped every week. The USA RL team has been packed with big physical athletes for years and have struggled to make an impact internationally because many of their players don't have a know how to compete against experienced players. 

Despite what Perez says Ottawa will need experienced RL players at least at first. I say all this as someone who very much wants a second Canadian team but let's be realistic for a moment.

I find it interesting and abit odd people are going on about Ottawa but not New York people should be far more worried about New York being a flop.

[Onieda FC]

13 minutes ago, OriginalMrC said:

There is very likely untapped resources in Canada and many fine athletes who could potentially make it into the game. That is all it is at the moment though. The idea that CFL or RU players could be converted to make a competitive league one team is a bit of stretch. No matter how good they are as athletes they have no experience playing high level RL and would likely get pumped every week. The USA RL team has been packed with big physical athletes for years and have struggled to make an impact internationally because many of their players don't have a know how to compete against experienced players. 

Despite what Perez says Ottawa will need experienced RL players at least at first. I say all this as someone who very much wants a second Canadian team but let's be realistic for a moment.

The only way this ever gets settled is if someone tries. This is something that has literally never been attempted at a professional level in the United States or Canada (prior to the advent of the Wolfpack). USARL players are amateurs playing in an amateur competition with very little access to high quality competition outside the World Cups. That has to change. There have to be pathways for the aforementioned "big, physical athletes" of the US and Canada to learn the game and to face serious pro competition. 

I don't think Perez is talking about stocking Ottawa solely with Canadians, I think he's saying there will be room for Canadians on the team. I'm sure it will, at first, be largely Brits and Aussies with a smattering of Canadians. That's a start, and it has to start somewhere. 

[Onieda FC]

1 minute ago, Jayme2020 said:

I find it interesting and abit odd people are going on about Ottawa but not New York people should be far more worried about New York being a flop.

New York could totally flop. It's going to be hard to convince people to cross the river to Harrison to watch something they don't know about. It's going to be hard to make a dent in the most crowded sports market in the United States with a 24/7 media cycle dominated by some of the biggest names in US sports. It's 50/50, in my estimation. 

But if it does, so what- they didn't take any money from the RFL. Nobody's out of pocket but the investors. The media here hasn't written a single word about NYCRL. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, etc. 

Does that mean RL should never expand to the US again? No, it just means Ricky Wilby's plan wasn't the right one. There many ways to crack an egg. 

[Kayakman]

2 hours ago, bbfaz said:

I don't see a lot of truth.  I see a lot of supposition.  Supposition isn't truth.  Creating a hypothesis isn't the same as testing a hypothesis.  I would know, I've done that plenty of times.  Unlike a lot of people here, I actually created a club in an expansion area that's doing reasonably well.  I had a hypothesis, it was sorta kinda right but not the level and volume I hoped.  Now we're looking to take that to the next level and hope it brings the rewards I convinced myself were there.

As I said before; don't sing it, bring it.  Test the hypothesis.  Get out there and prove it.  However, don't pass off hopes or opinion or conjecture as fact.  That's counter-productive to your argument.

Argyle had an hypothesis in Toronto...it has now been tested longterm and the concept has been n proven .  Where have you been the last couple of years?????