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New North American Competition?


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I think we all need to be patient and wait a little before picking holes in every tiny aspect of this.  One thing that's for damn sure is that there must be many people investing time, energy and money in this or what would be the point in all of the co-ordinated effort that's been put into this by 14 different teams?

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1 hour ago, OriginalMrC said:

Has anyone seen any contracts or other documents in relation to the league. Am interested to know what clubs have signed up for. They cant just be getting free money, surely there must be things they need to prove to get the central funding. Also who is bankrolling the whole thing? 

Pretty sure it's being bankrolled by the previous NY bid.

Apparently the NARL owns 30% of all clubs.

new rise.jpg

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5 minutes ago, Hello said:

I think we all need to be patient and wait a little before picking holes in every tiny aspect of this.  One thing that's for damn sure is that there must be many people investing time, energy and money in this or what would be the point in all of the co-ordinated effort that's been put into this by 14 different teams?

I think people will be skeptical until it kicks off. I’m optimistic but I’m not getting over excited. 
 

The launch has seemed a bit amateur with no press conference and little detail about the governance of the NARL. How have Ottawa and NY got involved? Who owns Toronto now? Will Atlanta and Boston compete in both USARL and NARL? Where will players and officials come from? 

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8 minutes ago, Mr Plow said:

I think people will be skeptical until it kicks off. I’m optimistic but I’m not getting over excited. 
 

The launch has seemed a bit amateur with no press conference and little detail about the governance of the NARL. How have Ottawa and NY got involved? Who owns Toronto now? Will Atlanta and Boston compete in both USARL and NARL? Where will players and officials come from? 

Some posters  on here (glass half empty types), IMHO, will be skeptical until both the cows come home AND this new venture surpasses both Duper League and the NRL in all aspects.......😀

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1 hour ago, Mr Plow said:

I think people will be skeptical until it kicks off. I’m optimistic but I’m not getting over excited. 
 

The launch has seemed a bit amateur with no press conference and little detail about the governance of the NARL. How have Ottawa and NY got involved? Who owns Toronto now? Will Atlanta and Boston compete in both USARL and NARL? Where will players and officials come from? 

The NY RFL bid is the NARL. They saw what happened with the Wolfpack and thought they'd start their own competition.

White Plains Wombats have taken over the IP of NY.

The Wombats and Kings are definitely not playing in the USARL this year. Kings have expressed a desire for a lower level competition to feed the NARL. Boston don't seem to be playing in the USARL either but haven't confirmed. Atlanta are playing both.

Nobody knows who owns TWP yet.

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11 hours ago, Cameron Highlander said:

Some posters  on here (glass half empty types), IMHO, will be skeptical until both the cows come home AND this new venture surpasses both Duper League and the NRL in all aspects.......😀

I don't think anyone thinks that. A credible competition (I'm not saying this isn't) should have the answers to basic questions. Initial press releases, videos filmed in gyms and social media graphics with loads of mistakes doesn't scream professional. I realise it's a fledgling league and things may well come together but they will need to get the basics right if they want people to have confidence in their product. 

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On 11/04/2021 at 12:39, Big Picture said:

To judge by the total lack of any response to the launch from the US media this new league won't be able to deliver that which on consideration isn't surprising.

Their launch amounted to a press release and a video on their Facebook page in which their Chief Operating Officer is seen sitting alone in a gym wearing workout clothes, making an announcement wherein he states that the clubs which existed before the new league was founded have all shown proof of being worth 1 million US$.  Leaving aside the question of whether that is true and the question of whether their Facebook video is accessible to the media, that amount is tiny considering that some minor league baseball franchises are worth over 30 million US$.

Unless they can get some media coverage in the US, how long this lasts is anybody's guess.

Unless they've got way more money up their sleeves than it seems, the only way I can see them getting any significant mainstream coverage in the US is if celebrities get involved. I mean look what the Rock has done for the XFL and CFL, yes that's a bit different but you get the idea.

If I was them I'd be contacting every celebrity with any connection to RL whatsoever, and trying and get them involved in someway, even if it's just a shout out on social media.

I'd start with Rusty, who would probably be up for it assuming they aren't expecting him to put any money or effort in, and then use his connection to try and get others involved.

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This could be enormous.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanatics_(sports_retailer)?wprov=sfla1

 

"Fanatics also currently operates the e-commerce websites of major professional sports leagues (MLB, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, NHL, PGA, MLS, and UFC), major media brands (CBS Sports, Fox Sports, and NBC Sports), and over 150 collegiate and professional team properties. They are also the exclusive online distributor for the United States Olympic Team and Paris Saint-Germain."

 

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2 hours ago, Pulga said:

This could be enormous.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanatics_(sports_retailer)?wprov=sfla1

 

"Fanatics also currently operates the e-commerce websites of major professional sports leagues (MLB, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, NHL, PGA, MLS, and UFC), major media brands (CBS Sports, Fox Sports, and NBC Sports), and over 150 collegiate and professional team properties. They are also the exclusive online distributor for the United States Olympic Team and Paris Saint-Germain."

 

Mascord stopped being a journalist years ago.

"Just as we had been Cathars, we were treizistes, men apart."

Jean Roque, Calendrier-revue du Racing-Club Albigeois, 1958-1959

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Eric Perez talks about NARL & Ottawa Aces (from 30 minutes in): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-full-eighty-minutes/id1399929915

There will be significant news within the next month about who is financing NARL, he says. 

The Aces will apparently be at least two-thirds Canadian and they've had "triple-digit" player applications from athletes from an array of sports. Perez maintains Ottawa will still play in the British system, despite this. He also says NARL could rival Super League with 7-10 years.

Newcastle Thunder general manager Jordan Robinson gives him a bit of a grilling to cut through the BS. Interesting discussion.

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2 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Eric Perez talks about NARL & Ottawa Aces (from 30 minutes in): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-full-eighty-minutes/id1399929915

There will be significant news within the next month about who is financing NARL, he says. 

The Aces will apparently be at least two-thirds Canadian and they've had "triple-digit" player applications from athletes from an array of sports. Perez maintains Ottawa will still play in the British system, despite this. He also says NARL could rival Super League with 7-10 years.

Newcastle Thunder general manager Jordan Robinson gives him a bit of a grilling to cut through the BS and Perez gets the hump and eventually goes missing. Interesting discussion.

If he genuinely thought that NARL could rival Super League in 7-10 years then it seems pretty pointless for Ottawa to also join the English system.

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13 hours ago, Pulga said:

This could be enormous.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanatics_(sports_retailer)?wprov=sfla1

 

"Fanatics also currently operates the e-commerce websites of major professional sports leagues (MLB, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, NHL, PGA, MLS, and UFC), major media brands (CBS Sports, Fox Sports, and NBC Sports), and over 150 collegiate and professional team properties. They are also the exclusive online distributor for the United States Olympic Team and Paris Saint-Germain."

 

If true it is enormous, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

The NARL would be by far the smallest entity that Fanatics has ever worked with, and I struggle to see where they'd see the value in it. 

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50 minutes ago, OriginalMrC said:

I'm starting to think he might be a bit of a grifter 🤔

Yes, he might just be right too. 

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1 hour ago, Man of Kent said:

Eric Perez talks about NARL & Ottawa Aces (from 30 minutes in): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-full-eighty-minutes/id1399929915

There will be significant news within the next month about who is financing NARL, he says. 

The Aces will apparently be at least two-thirds Canadian and they've had "triple-digit" player applications from athletes from an array of sports. Perez maintains Ottawa will still play in the British system, despite this. He also says NARL could rival Super League with 7-10 years.

Newcastle Thunder general manager Jordan Robinson gives him a bit of a grilling to cut through the BS. Interesting discussion.

I listened and Mr Robinson is totally ignorant of what it actually takes to crack a competitive sports market that is new to the sport. All of his suggestion were incredibly one dimensional and parochial.

If he thinks throwing £13mil (or whatever) into grassroots football in Toronto, or Canada more broadly, would have had any impact whatsoever then he's beyond delusional. In a totally new market like Canada that kind of investment into the grassroots as they are would have quickly disappeared down a money pit and they'd have nothing to show for it.

Here's the reality, you need well funded professional entities with broad exposure to push grassroots growth in competitive sports markets that are new to the sport. If you don't have that it's impossible to breakthrough the noise made by the more popular sports in the market, and as a result next to nobody in the market knows that your sport even exists to take an interest in playing it.

Just look at Australia; News Ltd and the NRL have collectively put over AU$100mil on top of average grants into the Melbourne Storm in the last 20 years, and that money went just into keeping them alive for the first decade and a bit.

It's taken all that money and time just to build what can best be described as a niche market in Melbourne, and it's been 20 years now (a generation) and only now are you starting to see significant growth in the local grassroots, which is still tiny and made up almost exclusively of expats.

Over AU$100mil is what it's taken just to get to the point in Melbourne where there is a significant amount of people interested in playing the sport at all, and Melbourne is about 4-5 hours away from the edge of the strongest RL markets in the world. So considering that imagine what it'll will take to crack a whole new continent that has basically no exposure to the sport!

It's a mammoth task, and if it's going to be successful it's going to require the exposure that only professional competition can bring as well as a lot of money and resources poured into the grassroots locally, and it will be generations before you see any significant growth or a steady flow of home grown players filtering through.

 

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14 minutes ago, The Great Dane said:

I listened and Mr Robinson is totally ignorant of what it actually takes to crack a competitive sports market that is new to the sport. All of his suggestion were incredibly one dimensional and parochial.

If he thinks throwing £13mil (or whatever) into grassroots football in Toronto, or Canada more broadly, would have had any impact whatsoever then he's beyond delusional. In a totally new market like Canada that kind of investment into the grassroots as they are would have quickly disappeared down a money pit and they'd have nothing to show for it.

Here's the reality, you need well funded professional entities with broad exposure to push grassroots growth in competitive sports markets that are new to the sport. If you don't have that it's impossible to breakthrough the noise made by the more popular sports in the market, and as a result next to nobody in the market knows that your sport even exists to take an interest in playing it.

Just look at Australia; News Ltd and the NRL have collectively put over AU$100mil on top of average grants into the Melbourne Storm in the last 20 years, and that money went just into keeping them alive for the first decade and a bit.

It's taken all that money and time just to build what can best be described as a niche market in Melbourne, and it's been 20 years now (a generation) and only now are you starting to see significant growth in the local grassroots, which is still tiny and made up almost exclusively of expats.

Over AU$100mil is what it's taken just to get to the point in Melbourne where there is a significant amount of people interested in playing the sport at all, and Melbourne is about 4-5 hours away from the edge of the strongest RL markets in the world. So considering that imagine what it'll will take to crack a whole new continent that has basically no exposure to the sport!

It's a mammoth task, and if it's going to be successful it's going to require the exposure that only professional competition can bring as well as a lot of money and resources poured into the grassroots locally, and it will be generations before you see any significant growth or a steady flow of home grown players filtering through.

 

Not the Melbourne canard again!

You know damn well Melbourne have youth development feeder clubs. They don't just take from the player pool, they add to it.

This is all academic as common sense has prevailed and NARL - including Ottawa and Toronto - will be forced to develop their own players. 

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Interesting with the possible Fanatics link up. They are the market leader when it comes to licensed apparel. Most of it is, like nearly all licensed product, cheap and cheerful, but they do it very well. And it's not like they claim its anything but.

The Nike suggestion could just be a "2+2=" thing, as Nike own Fanatics. But who knows.

League wide deals for playing kit and merchandise is IMO the best way forward for the new US comp. Will save money and allow them to keep everything consistent, and hopefully, in years to come give them a nice commercial asset. Something i've always felt SL should have pursued (some hope).

Fanatics operate a number of stores in NY for their other assets such as the NFL, as well as obvs selling into all other sports stores. If the RL comp could pick up even a tiny bit of floor space in any of these stores it would be pretty big in terms of exposure.

They would be a great partner to have.

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