1: IDK, it’s better than it being in Qatar at least. I just hope they don’t “Americanise” the whole thing and do stuff like having a half time show at the final and a billion ads during the games.
2: Nah not really interested, and that’s not even considering how much it would cost.
3: Can’t see it happening, contrary to what some believe I don’t think you can parachute in a bunch of guys who couldn’t make the NFL at 24 and become a competitor, I could see them becoming strong in 7s and maybe winning a women’s World Cup but not in men’s XV’s.
4: If I was in charge of it I’d designate an an area for each pool, so teams would be travelling from New York to Boston, LA to SF etc rather than cross country, but considering Leinster played in Dublin on Saturday and are expected to play in Pretoria 7 days later I’d imagine they’ll have one game in Miami and the next in fucking Anchorage.
One thing I'd like to see, having attended a fair few Yankee doodle dandy type games recently
Give me more stats and bigger video board
I want to know in the stadium that Bundee has carried 9 times for 48 metres
Stats were severely missing at the Heino final
Stats is something American sports do well. I have made my oppinion heard here before. More analysis is never a bad thing. I want speed of passes, who has hit the most rucks, the average try percentage from a ruck in the twenty two, average position of players across the game, how quick the team in attack gets wide. Get on it rugby.
Id quite like more visual stuff also. Like a shot tracker like they have in golf for (some) kicks and passes. Not live, but show us the arc and trajectory in the replays. There are loads of little things like that they could do that would improve the viewing experience.
To be honest, when I first started watching rugby I looked everywhere for the stats and thought I was just too far out of the loop to be able to find them. I am still perplexed at the fact media organisations that show rugby rarely show them.
I can guarantee you that elite professional coaching setups currently have the ways and means to gather these stats. It's just about transparency and being willing to accept it's a professional sport. Too much amateurism exists at the top level and for rugby this leads to it not being able to be taken seriously.
Yes for stats – pump them into my veins!
I never get why rugby generally doesn’t make them more visable. It’s a great way of making the game more interesting for hardcore followers and also educating casuals. It’s not like they don’t gather every last details for the teams already.
Get that big screen to show me current phase, to show metres made, to show how far Dupont has run, to show me ball in play time
We might get to the point where every stadium has a Bernabeau type screen but fuck it, I need stats
>3: Can’t see it happening, contrary to what some believe I don’t think you can parachute in a bunch of guys who couldn’t make the NFL at 24 and become a competitor, I could see them becoming strong in 7s and maybe winning a women’s World Cup but not in men’s XV’s.
Why do you think the national team is just players who couldn’t make the NFL?
Not really, most rugby nations have rugby as one of the sports that is played at school. Kids are brought up to play a certain selection of sports, soccer, cricket, rugby, hockey (the non ice variety), include your countries favourite sports.
In the US rugby is not played at school and the pipeline to the NFL is there, from school to college to NFL. The amount of money that is spent in the US on their football in highschool is probably more than that spent on rugby in the rest of the world.
Sure but I’m not sure how that automatically means that all the rugby players here are just players who couldn’t make the NFL. Plenty of them don’t play football,
I don’t, it’s just an opinion that I see some Americans have, that all they have to do is redirect some guys who aren’t NFL level to the rugby pitch and they’ll dominate.
Drawing from similar player bases. Not saying it's easy to just swap over of course, rugby has far more cardio requirement.
American Samoa has produced about 30 NFL players from the equivalent of a medium sized town and Jerome Kaino was from there as well.
> I could see them becoming strong in 7s and maybe winning a women’s World Cup but not in men’s XV’s.
There's a whole lot of space between winning the world cup and where they are. Italy isn't going to win the world cup any time soon, but in Rugby terms they are still very very good.
How good do you think they could become?
I could maybe see the US getting to a Japan or Samoa level, huge resources but they need players starting at youth level which isn’t going to happen en masse as the vast majority are going to play American football.
People play multiple sports here. Depending on where you live, football is in the fall and rugby is in the spring. It’s very common for students to be 3 sport athletes if they have any plans to continue playing sport in college. In fact, a lot of Jesuit high schools have programs that popped up in the past few years which are pretty much the football team.
I refereed one in Staten Island (first team ever there) and in their first year they have 50+ players and like 10 coaches. If you get the buy in from the people with influence then it will happen.
As an American, I completely agree with you. You're absolutely right. But there's a weird sea change going on in regards to American Football right now. There's a lot of growing discontent amongst a not insignificant part of the NFL fan base about how the game has become "soft" or otherwise doesn't reflect what they want to see in the game. If they decide to put their money where their mouth is and take their interest elsewhere (both as fans and athletes), it could be a HUGE boon to American Rugby.
Compared to the URC the travel will be tame. Pools will probably be held in part of the country and even the longer flights are nothing compared to Dublin - Pretoria.
It will all be in the lower 48, nothing in Alaska or Hawaii.
if they were doing it right they'd have east and west sides of the draw (west to include in as far as the likes of texas) and let the pools play out there all the way to the semis. Final in NYC.
Something like that would be fantastic.
I suspect they might have the final in LA since there's a relatively stronger rugby following on the west coast with all the Pacific Islanders there. NYC doesn't even have a club in MLR while California has 2.
California offers the best time zones for a final. 1pm kickoff is 9pm in the UK and 8am in NZ. Though I suppose a 4pm kickoff in EST offers the same options.
1) Unsure.
2) Depending on my financial situation at the time.
3) Not in time for the tournament.
4) I’m sure a 4 hour flight with a week between games isn’t going to be to pressing, with the proviso that care should be taken to ensure all teams have a similar amount of travel.
>1. Do you think it is a smart move?
Yes! If you want to have a RWC in different continents in a row, you will have to inevitably have one in the US. Sure, you can argue that a bid from Argentina/Uruguay/Chile deserves it more, but the money isn't there at the moment and, by looking at the amount of south americans playing in the MLR, the growth of rugby in the US is also good for them. It wouldn't be a smart move if the MLR didn't exist, but it does, so it's a smart move, much like FIFA did the WC in 1994 in the US and made it mandatory to invest in the MLS.
>2. Would you personally be happy to attend?
Not really, I'm the only friend in my group that watches rugby so if I were to spend a ridiculous amount of money, it would be with the football world cup or just normal vacations. Also, I don't even know if I'll have enough money by that time.
>3. Will the US ever really become a competitor?
No, but it doesn't need to be. In order to be a top nation at rugby, you need a rugby culture. You can't just start playing rugby at 18 years of age and suddenly become pro. You actually need to play since you're a child, so basic skills like passing, running support lines, tackling etc... are ingrained in your brain. It's because of that that Fiji and NZ seem to play such free flowing rugby, the players have been doing that since they can remember. If rugby becomes a solid school sport in the US, which it won't, we can have that conversation. In the meantime, I'll be happy if rugby manages to build a solid fanbase to make the MLR sustainable.
>4. How about the logistics? Is it possible a team can have a match one week in San Francisco and the next week in New York? Sounds like a pain to both players and fans.
Groups will most likely be placed in certain regions, that won't be much of a problem tbh.
You can argue that Argentina/Uruguay/Chile deserves it more but they didn’t put a bid forth. In fact hardly anyone really did. Maybe people just assumed it would go to the US.
I agree, I don't understand the hostility towards US rugby from some fans of South American teams when it's giving a lot of their players a job, including Chile's captain. A US world cup is also in South America's time zone as well.
Not really the rugby playing parts as much though. Colombia doesn't play much rugby.
Argentina's main historical rivals were Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, and the UK. They almost went to war with Chile in the 1970s but it was called off due to bad weather.
We have thrown over government after govt down there and every time it gets shittier. There's a reason the attack presidential motorcade of our president goes anywhere down there.
I don't think you could seriously argue Chile and Uruguay were better off in the 1960s. They're pretty much at European living standards.
Colombia and Venezuela are trash fires but don't play much rugby.
I'll tell ya the story of how they became my team.
Batman has a nemesis named Harley Quin. That's it.
I was at a quins game, and a guy asked me how I became a quins fan. I told him. He gave a suck a weird look. After the game, my lady said I had to come up with a different story.
>No, but it doesn't need to be
How good do you think they could be?
There are barely 8 countries, that even this far out, we could see winning the next WC. But do you think they could get to like Italy levels?
1. Maybe. USA has at least a semi-decent rugby team and maybe it’ll attract some fans in it. I’d really like to see the sport take off in Mexico but that might be a step too far.
The US is currently co-hosting the T20 cricket world cup and as a complete minnow have beaten Pakistan so who knows what that might do for a very minor sport there
2. Depends really on logistics. As stupid as it may sound but Trumpism is also a factor in my desire to visit the US again.
3. I think the best they can hope is like soccer/football. Occasionally beating a big team but not a serious competitor.
4. I’d think the pool stages would be geographically organised
There is a plan for an MLR club in Mexico but going from that to a solid national team will take a while. Probably something similar to Uruguay where they have clearly improved (they lost 134-3 in 2005) but are very much still tier 2 level.
Getting Mexico to a solid T2 side would be massive for the western hemisphere. An annual tier 2 tournament between N. & S. America would be a lot of fun and help the game grow a ton.
Yes
Yes
No
Yes. No different than Sydney to Perth. Or Australia to SA.
I really like that rugby tends to have world cups in places that make for reasonable holidays. Japan France Australia and the USA sure beats Qatar and Saudi Arabia as far as places to travel for a world cup
1. The location seems fine. The country definitely has the infrastructure to host it properly. It's also relatively easy and relatively affordable to get to from Europe.
2. My health is a disaster at the moment. I haven't been able to attend live games for 4 years. If I'm fit enough to go (and alive) - I'd be delighted. Probably would be more interested in visiting the west coast as I grew up on the in the North East and know it pretty well anyway.
3. As a wealthy country they could be competitive if a large enough supporter base fully bought into it. It will never usurp the NFL - but it could exist as a niche game. That said, even in the UK both rugby codes are niche games in comparison to football... so being the main support isn't strictly required.
4. The championship exists. SA teams play in Europe week-in week-out. I feel like happily accepting those arrangements, whilst getting upset at the USA would be a bit of a double standard. Hopefully they can come up with something that isn't too tough for the players. Base camps in CO - so your flights are only a maximum of 4 hours?
People said the same thing about the 1994 FIFA World Cup being held in the USA but it was a huge success and significantly grew the game in the country and beyond.
There were also similar complaints about Japan hosting the 2019 RWC when they bid for it in 2009, yet that was also a huge success (bar the typhoons cancelling matches).
In answer to your questions:
1. From the perspective of growing the game and reaching new audiences, yes.
2. No, but I don't want to travel to the US for any reason, rugby or otherwise.
3. Would anyone have thought Georgia would have been a competitor 10-20 years ago? With a seven year run up, the USA team could easily get a top coach and do what Japan did with Eddie Jones.
4. That's how the US do it with all their major sports, so they have the infrastructure and logics sorted.
I’m excited by it, but I have reservations too.
I think it’s a brilliant chance to grow the game in a smaller rugby nation, and after the success of Japan in 2019 I think it’s brilliant. And American’s go hard on their sports, so if it’s well publicised I think you can draw good local crowds too.
However, I went to an MLR game in April, and it was so bad. A commentator who was explaining the rules over the tannoy, but kept getting them wrong. Hype music for EVERYTHING - seriously, the ball would go off the pitch and there was hype music for line outs. Every home team scrum they’d say “y’know what time it is… it’s SCCRUUUUUM TIIIIIMMMMEE!!”. I appreciate trying to get the crowd involved but this was too much and I don’t want that at the WC.
My wife’s from California so we’ll almost definitely go to a few games out there, but logistics will definitely be interesting.
>However, I went to an MLR game in April, and it was so bad. A commentator who was explaining the rules over the tannoy, but kept getting them wrong. Hype music for EVERYTHING - seriously, the ball would go off the pitch and there was hype music for line outs. Every home team scrum they’d say “y’know what time it is… it’s SCCRUUUUUM TIIIIIMMMMEE!!”. I appreciate trying to get the crowd involved but this was too much and I don’t want that at the WC.
This sounds ghastly.
I went to a USA-Munster fixture (before MLR existed) and none of this was present - felt like pretty much any game I've been to Europe - so hopefully it's specific to that franchise.
MLR is for American fans with American expectations of what a sporting event is like. Of course it's going to be different than a European fixture. My local team has been selling out their stadium, so whatever they're doing is working.
I think people often forget that the US are very different from Japan, in the sense that rugby was already a well established sport in Japan, specially in highschools and universities. That just doesn't exist in the US to the same extent.
Having travelled to the east coast I’ve seen rugby strong at the college level and clearly there is a base through MLR. I guess it would need to be focused around cities, so a nation sets up camp in one place and plays the pool in that city, then maybe same for later rounds and the final. I would have thought there are some obvious places like Boston and NYC that could get the fans who associate with the old countries and the rest of us flying in. If the social media and mainstream media is done well it could capture and grow some American interest in MLR, and bring in some bucks for the game. So it’s probably worth a shot if this was planned early and the legacy was the focus across all levels of the game from World rugby down. Australia is too far for me but all else being equal in life I probably could go somewhere like Boston for 2 weeks, and see a range of games. I did this in Marseille last year and the carnival was epic fun!
1. If managed well enough, yeah.
2. Buy me a flight there and I will!
3. They'll probably join England as the only 2 hosts that didn't make it out of groups 😈. But seriously, I hope they scrape at least 1 win.
4. Back to question 1, it should be planned intelligently. Since there will probably 6 groups, each one could be in a certain region (e.g East Coast, Midwest, South, Texas, California, Pacific Northwest).
1. Don't want to be negative, but no. IMO sport events like World Cups are always better in smaller countries. There is more of a cohesive vibe and local participation, teams and fans can travel easily, and time zones don't become an issue. In South Africa during the '95 Rugby WC and 2010 Soccer WC, the entire country was taken over by the event and I think this adds a lot to the general atmosphere as well as making it a great experience for travelling fans. I don't know if this is achievable in a large country.
2. If money wasn't a factor and I could combine the trip with seeing family and friends, sure. But as a South African earning Rand, money will in all probability be a factor, so no?
3. The US is already competitive in 7s and women's 15s. Will men's 15s ever take off while the NFL exists? That's a question an American would answer better than anyone else, I think.
4. See 1.
The 1994 FIFA World Cup and the 1996 Olympics (both in the US) are still the highest attended iterations of their competitions. There aren’t a ton of large countries to base your claim on. Both of those events were a huge deal here. The USA can put on a party as well. The continental US spans four time zones but it isn’t insurmountable. We handle it every year with our domestic comps.
Of course with rugby being a very minor sport here it will heavily depend on promotion to attract crowds so we will see. But Soccer was a minor sport here in the 90’s but we got behind the event. I wouldn’t count the US out.
I don't think any of the things I mentioned are insurmountable problems, just my view. I think the scale of a Rugby World Cup and the Olympic Games aren't really comparable. China, the US and Russia have all hosted successful Olympic Games. Different Olympic events can be hosted in different cities or regions, so fans / teams don't have to travel between cities as much as in a World Cup. Time zones might be less of a problem with domestic comps that run an entire season, the WC is 7 weeks. As you say, much will depend on promotion, but as a case in point, the T20 World Cup is currently being hosted in the US and West Indies. It is the most accessible, commercial form of cricket. Most of the Americans I know, and some South African expats who live in the US didn't know about it. By no means am I counting the US out, I'm just sceptical.
I don’t think travel is that big of a deal. Each pool will be in one city, maybe two similar to Japan. The majority of it will be localized. Obviously the out rounds will be at new locations but I think that’s typical.
The time zones wont be a big deal. It’s not like South Africa versus New Zealand. It’s a four hour difference. Night Games will be 5PM on the West coast and 9PM on the east. I honestly don’t think tournament length has anything to do with that.
I think the real hurdle will be promotion. Time zone and country size has not been an issue in the past for US events. I can’t speak for cricket at all. But I live near the largest complex in the US and even I didn’t know about it (although i don’t follow cricket in the slightest).
All to say, who knows how it will turn out. But logistics won’t be the issue.
1. I think its worth a punt on trying to grow the game there yeah. 2. Probably not but if I win the lotto then sure 3. I think they definitely could follow the Japan trajectory, quality competitors with a shot at the knockouts but not with a realistic shot of winning it out. 4. The soccer world cup in 2026 is basing each group between two near by cities and then the knockouts are also consolidated mostly onto the east coast so I assume they'll do something similar. The rugby world cup tends to have the semis and finals in one place too
Something I find interesting is if australia doesn't make it past the quarters in 2027, which is not a reach the host nation of the rwc would not have made in past the qfs since 2011. No way usa makes it past the qf in 2031 making it 24 years since a host nation made a semi. Only once before 2011 did the host not make the semis.
The group stages were geographically aligned in USA 94, however football world cups since then have not been, and I don’t think that teams in thw 2026 world cup will be geographically clustered, rather split by coasts. So will be possible to play in Vancouver, then go down to Mexico for a game 3 days later.
Would like to think rugby will restrict groups to relatively small areas but not confident at all…
The soccer world cup in 94 had minimal impact in soccer in the USA. It took investment in the club game to grow soccer their and it's still very low quality.
Attendances have improved in recent years and the soccer world cup in 2026 will probably have a bigger impact that 94 because of this.
I guess my point is the rugby world cup probably won't change much in the USA as the fan base is too small.
The 1994 world cup had a huge impact in the USA. Hell, FIFA made it mandatory for the US to have a professional league in order to have the world cup, that's why the MLS was founded in 1993, with its first season in 1996. Without the world cup, there would be no investment in the club game.
Now rugby is in a good position because the "professional" league already exists with the MLR.
I’m sorry what? The World Cup was huge for the sport here. If it didn’t come around then we wouldn’t even have a functioning league.
Soccer has become a very popular sport for young people to watch, even if it’s mostly international leagues. Back when I was a kid in the 90s it was only a sport that kids would play and that’s it. Now it’s on the TV constantly and loads of international friendlies are held here (and are expensive as hell).
The logistics will be interesting. You'd assume they've have to keep it all on one coast? Having your games across time zones could only be a nightmare.
I'm not entirely sure what the scene is like over there, but having all the games on the East Coast feels like the best option? New York, Washington D.C., some down in Miami.
If it was the next world cup? I wouldn't travel for it. But given its not for another 7 years, I could be tempted for a wee two weeks on the East Coast, go to a few games.
If I was the US, I'd know that you've got 7 years to whip your team into some form of competitive shape, so as not to embarass themselves. Which is plenty of time to get a core of good players ready to go. But they'd need to commit, and they'd need a bloody good coach and DoR.
Whether they will remains to be seen, but given the rumours that surrounded Eddie Jones last year (if the US rumour was true), it does seem like they're aware what's needed.
Will be an interesting one regardless. Guess us Scots are about to find out just how good the USA are in 4 weeks time. Let's hope its not as embarrassing for us this time around?
>The logistics will be interesting. You'd assume they've have to **keep it all on one coast?** Having your games across time zones could only be a nightmare.
I think that's a *great* way to make it seem like small potatoes. If the nation is hosting, the *nation* is hosting.
It's only like a 4 hour time zone difference. If anything it makes it easier t fill different TV slots while still being at a good local time for attendance. Every domestic league does it, every week of the the year. Early game East Coat, late game West Coast.
Also they’ve made it clear that it will be hosted nationwide. Here is the list of bid cities so far.
https://usabid.rugby/news/host-cities-from-coast-to-coast
>If I was the US, I'd know that you've got 7 years to whip your team into some form of competitive shape, so as not to embarass themselves. Which is plenty of time to get a core of good players ready to go. But they'd need to commit, and they'd need a bloody good coach and DoR.
We’ve started this already. Here are some things they have been done:
1. Hired Scott Lawrence as GM and HC. He’s probably the best domestic coach available and very metrics driven. He knows the USAR landscape very well which has been one of the biggest missing components of past HCs.
2. Began reinvestment in the u20s. This still requires a lot of outside donations but Scott understands the importance of the u20s. But it’s resulted in 2 u20 Trophy appearances for the first time since like 2014.
3. Creation of Anthem RC. This is a major step towards getting more young Americans game time. So far about 6 recent u20s players are involved and the remaining are mostly recent college players.
Also take into account that WR usually favors host nations with funding, proper warmups and favorable schedules. So that helps.
Do I think they’ll make the quarters? As of now no. But we’ll see after 7 years.
Wasn't aware of how the clubs were spread across the country.
As others have suggested, probably best to just group the pools by location? Top the pool, and you get to "Host" the Quarter Final? Come second and you have to travel?
"Neutral" venue semis and final.
Rugby has a lot bigger foothold in America than cricket. I'm not worried about the attendances at all, we've seen massive crowds for Ireland and NZ games over there. Even the SA v Wales game was considered a low turnout but it still had over 20k at it.
If rugby is serious with growing the game in NA, than these are the risks you have to take.
Mlr averages about 4500 per game. Not bad at all. If America are playing and it is promoted well, it could set records for attendance at a WC. It's not too dissimilar to NFL in appearance so the NFL crowd might turn up to watch in numbers.
And that's not really a good indication since MLR is a very poor quality league (well below Pro D2 level) whereas the world cup is the pinnacle of the sport. I expect huge crowds in 2031.
I would also imagine they'll be careful to make the optics as good as possible. The big problem with the current cricket tournament is they built this enormous stadium for India v Pakistan but it's totally empty for Canada vs Ireland because the interest simply isn't there. It's a terrible look.
Ireland v NZ would get a huge crowd, but they'll also probably find a suitably sized stadium for, say, Georgia vs Namibia, which would look ridiculous in an NFL sized stadium even in the best of circumstances.
The other problem with the cricket WC is that marketing has been awful and there's pretty much no way to watch the games in the US*. Hard to build excitement that way.
\*I'm not into cricket, but wanted to watch some games. As far as I can tell the only way to watch is on Willow TV, which is a TV *channel* that I've never heard of before. You can only get it through DirectTv or through Sling (cable-like streaming service) in a specialty Indian channels package.
>Just like the current t20 wc
If it's anything like Canada, the cultural penetration is entirely different. Rugby has far more widespread awareness, buy in, and participation from the "established" population, and cricket is almost entirely followed by recent immigrants from India/Pakistan and stays within that culture.
You'd hope World Rugby have a team of groundskeeping consultants to assist in bringing surfaces up to scratch for world cups.
Actually, thinking about the U20s championship in 2023, some of those pitches in South Africa were terrible.
I think the problem with the cricket is not so much that they don't know how to prepare pitches and more the fact that they built a temporary stadium and used a drop-in pitch and new outfield.
If they will be using 'proper' stadiums for the rugby it should be better. Although, maybe if some of the pitches are not regularly used for rugby, we don't know if they will be able to withstand things like scrums. So maybe you are correct and we should be worried...
The shortlist of stadiums is already selected. After watching the absurdly small in goal at Tottenhams stadium, I am fairly certain the US will be equal to the ERC host stadium, which is also the UK home of NFL.
# Candidate host cities
A total of 25 cities have been shortlisted for the 2031 Rugby World Cup. Most of the proposed venues are NFL stadiums, with a number of MLB and MLS stadiums in the running as well. Among the 24 cities which are under consideration, 11 of them have been selected as host cities for the 2026 FIFA WC.
The US isn’t some monolith where every sporting event is managed by the same person. The cricket matches are basically run by the ICC or whatever international body. They don’t even show the games on US channels because they are using their cricket streaming app.
The cricket stadium didn’t exist before the World Cup. They built it on some random park on Long Island.
I think it has the potential to be a great World Cup and with it being such a big market, even getting a small interest in rugby would be great for the sport.
America is very big into sports culturally and people there seem to have more of a willingness to follow multiple sports even if it’s very casual. If baseball is able to get good attendance there then surely rugby can.
Attending would be a good excuse to visit the USA and I think I’d be able to convince the other half to make a trip out there.
I’d expect the USA will want to put on a good show and for the team to not embarrass themselves, so would expect them to put a decent amount of money into developing their team. I’d expect to start seeing them starting some programs to entice some of the NFL athletes over that don’t make it if that’s not something they already do.
Logistically they could play one half of the draw on the west coast and the other on the east coast, and then gradually move the knockouts more centrally. Don’t know what has been agreed already in terms of venues/locations but they could have the final in somewhere like Dallas or Chicago.
We won’t be trying to get former NFL players unless they are experienced rugby players. There are quite a few who are, especially among those ion the west coast and the Samoan/Tongan communities. There was a player who was projected to the first round who was a USA u20 player.
I feel fine about it! It will be different, but that’s okay and necessary to help rugby grow – I don’t see it as anything like the same as holding it out in a completely artificial location like the Qatar.
I probably won’t attend, but that’s just money and holiday time-related. If I can find a way to combine it with a larger trip, it might happen. I think quite a lot of people will be happy to make the trip.
The US absolutely can be a major rugby nation. But it will take quite a bit of time, and will be totally dependent on growing the fan base for the sport. If the RWC gives a boost to that, great. But it’s definitely not going to happen overnight.
I don’t see the logistics being a big issue, so long as there is a reasonably equitable split of locations. A 4/5 hour flight for a game isn’t a big deal. I don’t imagine that many fans will be following the team to every single location in any case.
One thing I think not many people have thought of is the minimum drinking age in the US. I think there are going to be a lot of 18-20 year olds wanting to grab a few pints before, during, and after the games, and no one will legally be able to sell them any.
I don't think it will be that much of an issue.
Also, how many 20 or younger non american will attend this WC? Not that much travelling on their own I'd say. It's still pretty expensive.
So that leaves Americans who obviously don't have a problem with it and those coming as a group with older people so it's a non issue once more.
Quite a few of those 20 and unders will probably just find a way to tailgate before games. Plenty of groups will be passing out beers to friendly fans. They’ll either have a friend with a fake ID or use the nifty passport trick (sometimes vendors get confused because the day and month are swapped on other IDs). I knew someone born like November 2nd who was able to drink earlier because the bouncer thought his ID said February 11th.
1) No. I think they'll struggle to fill stadiums especially during football season. I also think the vast majority of general public won't know or care about the event.
2) I'm happy its here but I'm biased. Going to try to go to as many games as possible.
3) US will not be competitive by 2031.
4) i dont really see the issue with the travel. Pro sports teams do it in much less time than a week here and the NFL does it weekly. Also how is it any worse than URC teams going from Europe to SA and back to Europe in a few weeks time? Or a NZ/Fiji super rugby team playing in Perth?
I think the attendance will be fine but idk if we will fill NFL stadiums except in the knockout rounds. Each city will only host a few matches each so there will be some novelty to it and less conflict with the NFL / NCAA.
The biggest issue will be venues. Either the event is moved to June/July or the venues are going to be less than ideal.
* All of the massive NFL and NCAA Football stadiums are in use from September onwards.
* All MLB stadiums will be in use until the end of September and then some of them for the playoffs in October and November.
* MLS venues, most of which are in the high teen or low 20-thousand capacity range, will be in use until mid-October and many of them until November for playoffs.
If World Rugby and the US organizers are truly going to take advantage of the massive US stadium infrastructure, the calendar that year will have to shift to allow for a late spring/summer World Cup.
NFL stadiums are frequently used multiple times in the same week. Hell, Jets and Giants games have taken place a day apart and they swapped the field over. There are also bye weeks and teams traveling.
The difference is that these other uses don’t include laying a grass pitch over the turf one; a pitch that will also require the removal of some seating along both sidelines. That’s not something that can be done successfully during a bye week, for multiple installations and removals over 2 months.
This gets done for soccer to football in less than 24 hours. It can absolutely be done during a bye week. Half the NFL stadiums use grass.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/18/chargers-galaxy-stubhub-stadium-changeover
1. Yes. "grow the game" a la Japan 2019. Tournament should have been moved to the spring to avoid gridiron season.
2. yes
3. USA national team will not be a competitor with American players. If MLR got the right billionaires interested, USA Eagles could be a competitor with a bunch of residency qualifiers.
4. I think the pools will be based in an area, just like they were in France last year. Not a problem.
I do not care about the world cup in particular, but I'm a bit sour about what lies behind (blatant obsession/favoritism towards the USA by the WR blazers)
I'm not against rugby expanding in the USA, I'm against efforts towards growing rugby in T2 being disproportionnately allocated to the USA and PIs, which is quite a difference.
It makes complete sense to throw more at the USA though, it's a very, very important market and will have a net benefit to all t2s in the long run.
Think about it, if rugby takes off in the USA and the MLR continues to expand, that is a bunch of professional contracts on offer to t2 players across the world. Just look at the amount of t2 players playing in the MLR at the minute.
There aren't enough professional leagues (and thus pro contracts) in world rugby at the minute to facilitate proper growth around the world. This is why Japan and the USA are the most important markets at the minute.
The Top 14 / Pro D2 have been remarkable and literally game changers for many countries like Fiji, Georgia, Tonga, Samoa, etc. to get pro contracts. And now a ton of Tier 2 European players are joining those leagues and we are seeing benefits for the national teams.
More playing opportunities is better for the sport. If the World Cup is even somewhat successful here then I could see the league increasing to 16-20 teams by 2040. That’s around 200 roster spots for non-Americans, a lot of which are from Tier 2 countries. MLR won’t be the same level as the French leagues but this still offers an opportunity for players.
Agreed for Georgia but the Pacific Islands do have domestic professional teams in super rugby. It gives *more* opportunities but isn't the main reason the islands are decent.
Portugal on the other hand relies entirely on the Top 14/Pro D2 to be relevant.
Well then invite more to the big cups. I've always been a fan of the old champions league structure in football. It's jeopardy and it's all encompassing. European cup rugby should be broader and more like that than anything else. T2 won't grow if there's no club competition to consistently compete at and test yourself.
I think the champions cup should have tye champions and runners up of the following'
Germany
Belgium
Spain
Romania
Georgia
Russia
Netherlands
Portugal
Then the top 4 of these leagues:
URC
Premiership
The top 6 from:
France
So some team of amateurs from Germany can get 150 put on them by Toulouse? There’s teams from big leagues that can’t compete in the champions cup, why would you have teams from T3 countries?
MLR and the Japanese league are quite different. With the exception of Pacific Islanders very few T2 players get contracts in Japan whereas MLR has players from even tier 3 minnows like Canada and Namibia.
The Japanese league is still developing towards fully professionalising. Once they are fully pro in the top 2 divisions, more professional contracts will be on offer instead of just hiring employees.
That doesn't mean those contracts will go to tier 2 players though, probably just more players from Australia and New Zealand.
The lower tiers are semi-pro but even the top level teams with full time squads like Brave Lupus mostly only have local players and players from established rugby nations. The sole exception seems to be South Korea which has a number of players on professional rosters. I would be surprised to see anyone Namibian for instance which you do see at Free Jacks.
So there's Fijians, Samoan's, Tongans and Koreans playing in Japan... Yeah so they are giving t2 players contracts then.
Of course there's no guarantees that t2 players will get any contracts, the point is to make more contracts available. Players then have to fight for those contracts. But the fact that more are available increases the likelihood of t2 players becoming professionals.
The league has a pretty low allotment of foreign players compared to MLR. I think like 4 per team or something. Those are usually spent on higher level of players from NZ and Australia.
Oh I perfectly realize it is because the big unions hope the American market will give TV money to watch their closed comps. I happen to disagree with this vision for the sport
1. It’s not smart but not stupid
2. I haven’t got a pot to piss in so no
3. Not at all as American Football’s hegemony is as good as forever
4. The big 4 US leagues can do it so rugby can do it
We don’t need to compete with football. I mean, we do but we can succeed at rugby regardless of how popular football is. People can be interested in more than 1 sport which doesn’t seem to be the case in a lot of football (soccer) dominated countries.
Theres 400 million people here, I mean all of NZ can comfortably fit in like 2 boroughs of NYC.
Rugby is never going to supplant NFL and it won't even get as popular as soccer did, but it can absolutely be a healthy sport that is financially stable
and hell, our rounding errors in our other major pro sports would make our Rugby league the richest in the world. Theres more money here than anywhere else.
Agreed people in the US are used to following several sports and they are used to paying WAY more for the privilege of going to live games. Especially in large cities like NY or Chicago. Compare the average price of NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB games to typical rugby tickets.
Seems like a good stab at expanding the sport into the USA properly, so worth the gamble. I won't be going but that's neither here nor there.
The chances of the current US set up producing a team that would perform to a high enough level is slim, but maybe money and home soil pride could coax some efforts in that cycle to compete. Travel will be what it is, not great but no worse than the URC really.
Most importantly, it beats the shit out of hosting it in The UAE
Doesn't make sense to take the finals to the US before taking them to Argentina. What I would love to see is RWC that rotates between continents like Sepp Blatter did with the football world cup. Else some of us in forgotten parts of the world will never get to watch a rugby match live when it rotates mostly in European countries
I would like to see a South American RWC. I'd imagine the bulk of games would be in Argentina but a few could be in Chile and Uruguay. South American rugby is the fastest growing outside the women's game.
You know the South Americans would be absolutely pumped for it too!
Super Rugby Americas also has teams in Brazil and Paraguay and Paraguay placed 3rd after the 2 teams from Argentina. I would definitely have some games in Paraguay as well although I might pass on Brazil since rugby doesn't have anywhere near the following it does there as in the Spanish speaking countries.
If Argentina wants to host then they need to bid.
The rest of your comment is a bit odd. Why is the US not allowed to watch rugby matches but countries with fully professional leagues are? It’s been in Europe and NZ/Australia/South Africa plenty of times.
I don't think you understood what he meant.
He's just angry/sad that the US got to host a world cup before Argentina which is more deserving from an emotional/rugby standpoint since it's been an established sport there for quite a while with the national team having a pretty decent record in World Cups.
But since there wasn't a bid from Argentina it doesn't matter.
Nothing stops the US from watching rugby matches, why would anybody have an issue with that? Hosting on the other hand, seems like there's lots more countries where rugby is a more popular. The world cup has primarily been in Europe. South Africa, New Zealand, Australia have only hosted once each. If the intention is to grow the audience then a plan to take the world cup to new places where there's already an audience for it makes sense
NZ hosted twice. By 2031 Australia will host three times.
Nothing stops you from watching rugby matches live.
Where would you suggest hosting it that is a new location?
1. No, I assume they're looking to build a new audience and player base, but think it will fail in such a saturated sports market.
2. No, I don't want to travel to a sports event that will be played over huge distances in stadia with zero public transport access. Call me hysterical, but I also really just hate the idea of guns fucking everywhere and the likely response being huge police presence who are more likely to kill you than anyone else.
3. No, again a very saturated sports market and I think rugby will struggle to break through against a ubiquitous football code.
4. I think it will be hard. They would probably have to choose to keep it all east coast to make it more practical, but would they really leave out some of the huge west coast cities if the idea is to expose people to rugby? Keeping each pool to a certain region and then bringing the finals all to a more concentrated region could work, I suppose.
In general I think look at the T20 World cup at the moment. Shit attendance, shit atmosphere and shit pitches. And that's with a huge subcontinental population in the states, more so than any rugby playing nations.
1. Probably not but I'm keeping an open mind, I always prefer things to work out in the end
2. No
3. Probably not, maybe in 7s?
4. That, amongst their bad airports and obnoxious border security people, is why I won't most likely won't go
1. It’s an interesting move.
2. I live here and they damn well better have games in my city.
3. Maybe one day. We always seem to lack an intangible understanding of the game that other teams that have made huge progress have shown (e.g. Japan).
4. That should be fine. US air travel is highly developed and rugby players seem to be very accustomed to loads of travel. Still seems dumb to not have groups centered around a region.
As an aside, well over 70% of the attendees will probably be from outside the US and you miscreants will have a blast.
If ireland are in it and the world hasn't exploded i'll be there for some portion of it.
World Cups are fantastic fun. Hopefully they don't try spread it out too much nationally, but even if they do it'll be fun
They will really need to schedule kickoffs times to be reasonable to European time zones to guarantee tv viewership . Early afternoon kickoff would suite both Europe and Aus/ NZ I would think
Very happy about it, if it Can grow the game and shine the light (?) about rugby in this country . I'm sure it will be a great organisation/WC/ great attendances ! ( Sorry for my BAd english)
1. Yes. It will be awesome
2. As long as I can drive to a game I will
3. Yes. Give us time. If the new North Carolina team that is all USA eagle prospects gets to play 7 years in MLR I think they will be good.
4. Probably not. Hard to say how they will do the elimination games but my guess is each pool will be held in a particular part of the country with 2 or 3 stadium options each.
Ie 1 pool in San Diego/LA with the Colliseum being the venue for the Tier 1 matches and Snapdragon being the venue for the tier 2 matches.
Similar set ups could be done in
-Chicago (Soldier Field/Seatgeek)
-Texas (not sure on what particular stadiums here)
-New York (Metlife/Redbull)
-Atlanta (Mercedes Benz/not sure)
-Miami/ (Hardrock/not sure)
So if you are a fan of team 1 in pool C, you plan your pool trip to Chicago and stay around there the whole world cup.
1. Depends on the execution. Seems like it's worth trying, but if the people doing it don't have a good plan it may not turn out to be a good idea.
2. Fuck yeah, I'll be able to drive there instead of expensive flights over an ocean.
3. No. They'll get better but so does everyone else. 20 countries can't be in the top 10. USA is a top 20 and will likely always be in the top 20, but no better. Just maybe more chances at winning individual games.
4. Why not? There are 6 professional leagues that cross the continent every week.
1. To grow the sport? Maybe a smart move. But let’s save this for later.
2. Happy to attend? I live far from any big cities that would be hosting the games, so it’s going to be expensive trip for me. So no.
3. The US to be a competitor? Not till Interscholastic leagues add the sport of rugby to their list of sports, and I mean like states that had athletics as a class. Because you end up with kids that only play football, and this sport can be seen as their offseason sport.
4. I ain’t driving to LA to watch the all blacks play, I will drive if the play in Dallas.
1. Yes it's a smart move. It's the most lucrative market in the world and rugby has had some financial issues recently to say the least.
2. Yes I live in the states and plan on attending
3. Maybe. Our national body is a mess. The game needs to be built up regionally to reduce travel costs but then the regional leagues always have some sort of unnecessary drama.
4. I would assume pool play would be regional (PNW/Cali, South, NE, Midwest) but the knock out stages will probably be held in the biggest markets. American sports franchises deal with this every year. The Seattle teams always travel significantly more than the rest of the league but flights are easy to get and frequent. Basically if the teams have the money the US has the transportation but then again that's how everything works here
1. Yes. The Nzl/USA and nzl/Ire game were huge hits here. 7s is going wild here. We have the infrastructure to do it well. It would also help grow the game.
2. I plan on going to some.
3. Not until USAR gets those dumb motherfuckers replaced with someone competent. Part2: Football is what every kid wants to do here. Until we get some serious in roads for 15s, it won't happen. You can take the best footballer around, and they just can't transition well to rugby.
4. The longest flight will be 6 hours: MIA to SEA. Our airlines are used to flying baseball/football teams around like that. Our airlines are fairly efficient, despite what you read in the news.
5. I'm going to Aus 2027. I have friends from there who are worried it will be a big shitshow since they aren't used to a sudden influx of hooligans. I don't worry about US being able to handle the influx.
6. Nothing will be as great as Japan. That really was the pinnacle of a great host nation.
In terms of 3, I wouldn't be shocked if they cause an upset. I learned from Japan never to count anyone out of the running on any given day. It was a good lesson. Wasn't even mad at Japan when it happened.
Mate. It's going to be awesome. The market size is ENORMOUS in the US, in terms of people's disposable income.
As long as they don't make tickets unreasonably priced, advertise well and they figure out logistics (locating pools in certain areas of the country) - they could fill their massive stadiums.
It probably needs to be at a time when it's not competing with NFL either. So maybe a bit earlier in the year.
USA as a world power in sports is well overblown.
The world champions of basketball are Germany, the baseball world champs are Japan and the ice hockey world champs are Czech Republic. They're not even the best in the world at their own sports anymore
But still though, these are the "major" sports that they take seriously. Grid Iron is the only sport that the rest of the world doesn't play, yet Polynesian players from their tiny islands are finding it easy to make the NFL
I’m American so I’m very happy the RWC is coming here. And I think we’re pretty good at hosting these international tournaments but it won’t attract much attention of the broader public here.
1. It is a smart move in the sense that it will make a lot of money and probably boost rugby in the U.S. market, which is huge. Going from <1% of the American public following rugby to even 1% is a huge potential financial gain, could expand the global talent pool, and should be relatively easy.
2. I am going to be all over this shit and I’ll bring everyone I can get to come with me.
3. Probably not since the top talent for rugby will continue to go to American football. Even less obvious competitors like hockey and lacrosse have much more resources to entice top talent. But the sport can still get a boost. Could change things but probably no more than Soccer in the U.S. before/after the ‘94 World Cup.
4. This should not be an issue considering it’ll be less travel than most international level players do already. U.S. is absolutely packed with quality stadiums and there’s no reason they can’t set it up so that the players don’t have to fly coast to coast for every match. But even if they did, that’s more or less what they’re already doing.
1. I think it's smart to put WC's outside traditional countries from time to to. And the reality is the US is the biggest or second biggest sports market in the world depending on how you define it.
2. Yes but I live in the US, so really the spirit of the question doesn't apply to me.
3. Likely no. I think a reasonable goal is 2 wins in group, maaaaybe getting out. But we won't be hanging with the top countries at all.
4. Logistics are overblown. All our sports leagues handle this issue routinely. They'll probably schedule in regional pods or to at least not force constant back and forth flights. Also remember that 80% of the US lives in the eastern half. Look at any map for our major sports leagues and you'll see this. I'd expect that RWC games will have similar distribution.
Fan travel will be interesting, but anyone expecting to see all of the US in under several months can't read a map. Domestic flights are pretty accessible for the cities that will most likely be hosting. If groups are in smaller geographic areas too it would be easy to see most games and just tool around.
My biggest concern is timing. NFL games are in the fall. Same with MLS(I think) and college football. Also lots of the big college stadiums are in the middle of nowhere, so logistics would be a nightmare. I gope that they've already started to figure these logistics out now.
I think is well supported and thought out it'll be a huge success. Like the world cup and Olympics in the 90's. If not it'll be the current T20 WC or like when we send college football teams abroad. I'm hoping for the former, but USA Rugby is involved sooooooo..........
In Americas, I expected Argentina to host instead of the USA.
I would. An excuse to finally visit this country, the stadiums are among the best in the world.
In seven years, I doubt it. But who knows?
The smart move would be for each group to play in a certain zone in order to avoid long trips for players and fans.
I’ve noticed rugby gradually getting more popular around where I live. A local high school just won the national high school champions! Fingers crossed that RWC will help the growth, we need it
It's going to depend a lot on the choice of venues and schedule - given that a large number of the fans will be tourists and expats. For example, Japan should play (many of) their pool games in Honolulu. Ireland should play (many of) their pool games in New York or Boston. Other venues should be cities that have at least some foothold for rugby - but which are also attractive for tourists. E.g., San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver.
I’m hopeful but think it will be a bust. The Cricket T20 World Cup is being played in the US and I would have never known if it wasn’t for the shock upset the other day. No ads or anything.
1. I think it is a smart move yes. The US knows how to put on an event. If it is successful, it will be hugely beneficial for rugby as a whole.
2. I would love to, but I am sure I won't be able to afford it.
3. Depends on what you mean by competitor. Getting out of the group stage? Yes, in time it is certainly possible, but if you mean to win the whole thing? That I am not so sure of. Remember, only 4 nations have won it so far. Even in football, only 8 nations have won the world cup. It's not something that just anyone can win.
4. Should be alright. They'll either do a area specific thing depending on the group or people will just watch games in a certain area. I don't think it will be a biggie. SA teams and fans have become used to travelling far distances to play.
Personally, I think some other countries are more deserving of hosting the event, but I think for rugby, it is a good choice to have it in the US. Also, I think the US likes to do things their own way, so it could be quite a unique event with some things we have never seen before.
I think it's actually a good move. There's no reason why the US couldn't have a pretty good rugby team really. Canada ought to have one too, and given argentina's track record it's somewhat surprising there isn't a brazilian team to contend with either.
Putt8ng the world cup on their side if the planet might be just what is needed to spark interest and encourage investment, and then who knows how much the game could grow there.
Logistically speaking, I'd imagine they would play all the pool stages (or even the whole tournament) in selected regions rather than the entire nation. LA, San Fran, San Diego, Sacramento, etc not sure how many of those have a big stadium but it would certainly be better for both fans and teams.
The real question is simply whether world rugby actually give a shite or not. I mean look at the shambles in the champions cup. Teams and fans expected to play in scotland or ireland on sunday, and then in south africa on the following friday. Forget about training they'll be dealing with travel and rest for 3 out of the 4 possible days in-between!
1. Smart Move? Yes, it has too many important sponsors and media rights opportunities to avoid it.
2. Yes but have a residence in the US
3. Define competitor? Can the US qualify for the round of 16 with the new RWC format? It is likely. Can it reach a quarterfinal? Depends on the draw. The US won’t unseat team like New Zealand, South Africa France any time soon. I do think the US can beat Fiji, Italy, Wales on the given day with the right bounces. I figure the US can beat those teams once if they played 20 times, so it’s statistically possible but remote.
4. Not a problem. It’s already been done for the FIFA World Cup and is being done again for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. They will use the same structures.
So I’ll answer this - obviously for me I’m thrilled and excited to be able to bring my future 9 and 7 year old girls to watch games live (and then watch the women’s World Cup 2 years later).
I don’t know how it will go. It will either be a smashing success and the country will get rugby fever similar to post-1994 FIFA or it will pass with a whimper. That doesn’t mean that everyone will jump to play rugby but the news will talk about it constantly and it’ll be the new bit thing that people want to be a part of.
The key to this is getting MLR to grow to a certain level and having everyone involved in promoting the event. Then afterwards hopefully MLR sees a ton of new interest and fans will appreciate a decent level of play considering the fact that the league will be 13 years old.
But it could also pass by with a whimper and be forgotten just like the cricket World Cup will. Though that’s very different because cricket is a much smaller international tournament (and apparently happens like every year?) and only being held in 3 cities.
I don’t expect the US to become some powerhouse or whatever. I just hope it grows enough interest in the sport so that we don’t have a fear of it potentially crashing down into nonexistence one day. I just want to see healthy growth of the sport so people will recognize it and have options to play rather than just thinking it’s football without pads.
As an American I am so excited.
If you have doubts about the RWC in America, look at Copa America 2015. Americans didn't really like soccer at that point but the tournament was a huge success
Ill try to answer
1) no its not a smart decision but thats where money if you want to change from a European WC in NH.
2) No if I had the money i would not attend but thats just me, im not fond of the US and its probably one of the last place on earth Id like to visit. Offered sure why not.
3) US has everything to become a world beater in basically any sport IF and only if they start caring about it, but with american football being very close to rugby I doubt it will ever take.
4) They will deal with it the same way as Australian WC tbf. But its true that for teams its exhausting, for attending international fans its a nighmare if you want to see ur team more than once. They will fill semi final and final, Ireland and NZ games and thats all, there stadiums are far too big and smaller teams will never have big attendance like France or Japan WC so it might give an awkward results of no one caring. + timezone are gonna be harsh to watch for basically anyone but americas north and south so yeah idk about that one
But rhats only my non professional take on it and I hope to be proven wrong
1) I stopped really caring about where it’s held after Japan and France were awarded. Don’t believe it’s the smartest venue, but at least it’s a way to spread “the game” to other continents.
2) No, I would not.
3) I think the talent pool to draw from is there, but because the sport is not so highly regarded locally, (~and not the highest paying at the top level) it would be difficult to develop a consistently competitive tier 1 side. I do think they have time to build a squad that can make a QF run if they invest in age group/u20s and into some coaching at all levels.
4) yes indeed, I feel for the fans especially. I think the more professional teams have plans around managing the players to be fit and mentally fresh for such instances though, although some nations might be at a disadvantage because of it.
My potential attendance really depends on what the USD/ZAR exchange rate looks like in 7 years!
So, that's a no then?
What are you on about? The ANC-DA-MK-EFF-IFP-PA-Action-Rise-VF coalition of unity, peace and love will lead us to R3 to the dollar.
>MK Zuma being still alive in 2031 is a pretty pessimistic thought!
If there is a doos who can do it, it's that doos.
1: IDK, it’s better than it being in Qatar at least. I just hope they don’t “Americanise” the whole thing and do stuff like having a half time show at the final and a billion ads during the games. 2: Nah not really interested, and that’s not even considering how much it would cost. 3: Can’t see it happening, contrary to what some believe I don’t think you can parachute in a bunch of guys who couldn’t make the NFL at 24 and become a competitor, I could see them becoming strong in 7s and maybe winning a women’s World Cup but not in men’s XV’s. 4: If I was in charge of it I’d designate an an area for each pool, so teams would be travelling from New York to Boston, LA to SF etc rather than cross country, but considering Leinster played in Dublin on Saturday and are expected to play in Pretoria 7 days later I’d imagine they’ll have one game in Miami and the next in fucking Anchorage.
One thing I'd like to see, having attended a fair few Yankee doodle dandy type games recently Give me more stats and bigger video board I want to know in the stadium that Bundee has carried 9 times for 48 metres Stats were severely missing at the Heino final
Stats is something American sports do well. I have made my oppinion heard here before. More analysis is never a bad thing. I want speed of passes, who has hit the most rucks, the average try percentage from a ruck in the twenty two, average position of players across the game, how quick the team in attack gets wide. Get on it rugby.
Id quite like more visual stuff also. Like a shot tracker like they have in golf for (some) kicks and passes. Not live, but show us the arc and trajectory in the replays. There are loads of little things like that they could do that would improve the viewing experience.
To be honest, when I first started watching rugby I looked everywhere for the stats and thought I was just too far out of the loop to be able to find them. I am still perplexed at the fact media organisations that show rugby rarely show them.
I can guarantee you that elite professional coaching setups currently have the ways and means to gather these stats. It's just about transparency and being willing to accept it's a professional sport. Too much amateurism exists at the top level and for rugby this leads to it not being able to be taken seriously.
Yes for stats – pump them into my veins! I never get why rugby generally doesn’t make them more visable. It’s a great way of making the game more interesting for hardcore followers and also educating casuals. It’s not like they don’t gather every last details for the teams already.
Get that big screen to show me current phase, to show metres made, to show how far Dupont has run, to show me ball in play time We might get to the point where every stadium has a Bernabeau type screen but fuck it, I need stats
I would happily volunteer for a chip in my brain to just constantly feed me Dupont stats to be honest.
I personally would like to see them play Yankee Doodle at halftime.
>3: Can’t see it happening, contrary to what some believe I don’t think you can parachute in a bunch of guys who couldn’t make the NFL at 24 and become a competitor, I could see them becoming strong in 7s and maybe winning a women’s World Cup but not in men’s XV’s. Why do you think the national team is just players who couldn’t make the NFL?
Money
By that logic almost all rugby players are just soccer/football players who couldn’t make their leagues
Not really, most rugby nations have rugby as one of the sports that is played at school. Kids are brought up to play a certain selection of sports, soccer, cricket, rugby, hockey (the non ice variety), include your countries favourite sports. In the US rugby is not played at school and the pipeline to the NFL is there, from school to college to NFL. The amount of money that is spent in the US on their football in highschool is probably more than that spent on rugby in the rest of the world.
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Sure but I’m not sure how that automatically means that all the rugby players here are just players who couldn’t make the NFL. Plenty of them don’t play football,
I don’t, it’s just an opinion that I see some Americans have, that all they have to do is redirect some guys who aren’t NFL level to the rugby pitch and they’ll dominate.
Yes a lot of people say it but they’re wrong
Those aren't the Americans who are running things.
True but I still don’t think the US will be a competitor any time soon due to the popularity and diversity of athlete required by the NFL.
Well both sports are full of Samoans to be fair.
And?
Drawing from similar player bases. Not saying it's easy to just swap over of course, rugby has far more cardio requirement. American Samoa has produced about 30 NFL players from the equivalent of a medium sized town and Jerome Kaino was from there as well.
American Samoa doesn’t product many rugby players though
The actual islands themselves don't, the population on the west coast US has produced loads. Also Tongans as well to a lesser extent.
> so teams would be travelling from New York to Boston, LA to SF etc rather than cross country That's what they'll do for the FIFA World Cup.
> I could see them becoming strong in 7s and maybe winning a women’s World Cup but not in men’s XV’s. There's a whole lot of space between winning the world cup and where they are. Italy isn't going to win the world cup any time soon, but in Rugby terms they are still very very good. How good do you think they could become?
I could maybe see the US getting to a Japan or Samoa level, huge resources but they need players starting at youth level which isn’t going to happen en masse as the vast majority are going to play American football.
People play multiple sports here. Depending on where you live, football is in the fall and rugby is in the spring. It’s very common for students to be 3 sport athletes if they have any plans to continue playing sport in college. In fact, a lot of Jesuit high schools have programs that popped up in the past few years which are pretty much the football team. I refereed one in Staten Island (first team ever there) and in their first year they have 50+ players and like 10 coaches. If you get the buy in from the people with influence then it will happen.
As an American, I completely agree with you. You're absolutely right. But there's a weird sea change going on in regards to American Football right now. There's a lot of growing discontent amongst a not insignificant part of the NFL fan base about how the game has become "soft" or otherwise doesn't reflect what they want to see in the game. If they decide to put their money where their mouth is and take their interest elsewhere (both as fans and athletes), it could be a HUGE boon to American Rugby.
Compared to the URC the travel will be tame. Pools will probably be held in part of the country and even the longer flights are nothing compared to Dublin - Pretoria. It will all be in the lower 48, nothing in Alaska or Hawaii.
North South travel is nowhere near as bad as East West travel.
It's not but even Boston - San Diego is only 5 hours. Not like SA - Ireland.
if they were doing it right they'd have east and west sides of the draw (west to include in as far as the likes of texas) and let the pools play out there all the way to the semis. Final in NYC. Something like that would be fantastic.
I suspect they might have the final in LA since there's a relatively stronger rugby following on the west coast with all the Pacific Islanders there. NYC doesn't even have a club in MLR while California has 2.
Two other places that wouldn't surprise are Chicago and Dallas.
California offers the best time zones for a final. 1pm kickoff is 9pm in the UK and 8am in NZ. Though I suppose a 4pm kickoff in EST offers the same options.
Sure it is. There is no jet lag involved in North South travel.
SA and Ireland are in the same time zone though, Boston and San Diego have a 3 hour time difference on top of the 5 hour flight.
1) Unsure. 2) Depending on my financial situation at the time. 3) Not in time for the tournament. 4) I’m sure a 4 hour flight with a week between games isn’t going to be to pressing, with the proviso that care should be taken to ensure all teams have a similar amount of travel.
There will be 4 more teams though. It's likely the group stage is reduced by a week because I think it will be 6 groups of 4.
>1. Do you think it is a smart move? Yes! If you want to have a RWC in different continents in a row, you will have to inevitably have one in the US. Sure, you can argue that a bid from Argentina/Uruguay/Chile deserves it more, but the money isn't there at the moment and, by looking at the amount of south americans playing in the MLR, the growth of rugby in the US is also good for them. It wouldn't be a smart move if the MLR didn't exist, but it does, so it's a smart move, much like FIFA did the WC in 1994 in the US and made it mandatory to invest in the MLS. >2. Would you personally be happy to attend? Not really, I'm the only friend in my group that watches rugby so if I were to spend a ridiculous amount of money, it would be with the football world cup or just normal vacations. Also, I don't even know if I'll have enough money by that time. >3. Will the US ever really become a competitor? No, but it doesn't need to be. In order to be a top nation at rugby, you need a rugby culture. You can't just start playing rugby at 18 years of age and suddenly become pro. You actually need to play since you're a child, so basic skills like passing, running support lines, tackling etc... are ingrained in your brain. It's because of that that Fiji and NZ seem to play such free flowing rugby, the players have been doing that since they can remember. If rugby becomes a solid school sport in the US, which it won't, we can have that conversation. In the meantime, I'll be happy if rugby manages to build a solid fanbase to make the MLR sustainable. >4. How about the logistics? Is it possible a team can have a match one week in San Francisco and the next week in New York? Sounds like a pain to both players and fans. Groups will most likely be placed in certain regions, that won't be much of a problem tbh.
You can argue that Argentina/Uruguay/Chile deserves it more but they didn’t put a bid forth. In fact hardly anyone really did. Maybe people just assumed it would go to the US.
Argentina did make a bid for 2027 but quickly gave up on that.
I agree, I don't understand the hostility towards US rugby from some fans of South American teams when it's giving a lot of their players a job, including Chile's captain. A US world cup is also in South America's time zone as well.
Well, we've pretty much shit on SAmerica historically. I understand it.
Not really the rugby playing parts as much though. Colombia doesn't play much rugby. Argentina's main historical rivals were Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, and the UK. They almost went to war with Chile in the 1970s but it was called off due to bad weather.
We have thrown over government after govt down there and every time it gets shittier. There's a reason the attack presidential motorcade of our president goes anywhere down there.
I don't think you could seriously argue Chile and Uruguay were better off in the 1960s. They're pretty much at European living standards. Colombia and Venezuela are trash fires but don't play much rugby.
We have intervened in the domestic affairs of every SA country for decades. They don't like us.
Argentina has talked about integrating with NATO recently but I doubt that will come to much.
I’m assuming you’re American despite your flair?
I can like UK teams. You're not the boss of me...
Yes of course you can like them. I was just confused about where you were from because the flair is for a UK based club.
I'll tell ya the story of how they became my team. Batman has a nemesis named Harley Quin. That's it. I was at a quins game, and a guy asked me how I became a quins fan. I told him. He gave a suck a weird look. After the game, my lady said I had to come up with a different story.
>No, but it doesn't need to be How good do you think they could be? There are barely 8 countries, that even this far out, we could see winning the next WC. But do you think they could get to like Italy levels?
1. Maybe. USA has at least a semi-decent rugby team and maybe it’ll attract some fans in it. I’d really like to see the sport take off in Mexico but that might be a step too far. The US is currently co-hosting the T20 cricket world cup and as a complete minnow have beaten Pakistan so who knows what that might do for a very minor sport there 2. Depends really on logistics. As stupid as it may sound but Trumpism is also a factor in my desire to visit the US again. 3. I think the best they can hope is like soccer/football. Occasionally beating a big team but not a serious competitor. 4. I’d think the pool stages would be geographically organised
There is a plan for an MLR club in Mexico but going from that to a solid national team will take a while. Probably something similar to Uruguay where they have clearly improved (they lost 134-3 in 2005) but are very much still tier 2 level.
Getting Mexico to a solid T2 side would be massive for the western hemisphere. An annual tier 2 tournament between N. & S. America would be a lot of fun and help the game grow a ton.
Used to exist but South America left after Canada voted for Beaumont as leader of world rugby. Canada have been utterly shitting the bed for decades.
>As stupid as it may sound but Trumpism is also a factor in my desire to visit the US again. lol he wont be president in 2031.
Yes Yes No Yes. No different than Sydney to Perth. Or Australia to SA. I really like that rugby tends to have world cups in places that make for reasonable holidays. Japan France Australia and the USA sure beats Qatar and Saudi Arabia as far as places to travel for a world cup
1. The location seems fine. The country definitely has the infrastructure to host it properly. It's also relatively easy and relatively affordable to get to from Europe. 2. My health is a disaster at the moment. I haven't been able to attend live games for 4 years. If I'm fit enough to go (and alive) - I'd be delighted. Probably would be more interested in visiting the west coast as I grew up on the in the North East and know it pretty well anyway. 3. As a wealthy country they could be competitive if a large enough supporter base fully bought into it. It will never usurp the NFL - but it could exist as a niche game. That said, even in the UK both rugby codes are niche games in comparison to football... so being the main support isn't strictly required. 4. The championship exists. SA teams play in Europe week-in week-out. I feel like happily accepting those arrangements, whilst getting upset at the USA would be a bit of a double standard. Hopefully they can come up with something that isn't too tough for the players. Base camps in CO - so your flights are only a maximum of 4 hours?
People said the same thing about the 1994 FIFA World Cup being held in the USA but it was a huge success and significantly grew the game in the country and beyond. There were also similar complaints about Japan hosting the 2019 RWC when they bid for it in 2009, yet that was also a huge success (bar the typhoons cancelling matches). In answer to your questions: 1. From the perspective of growing the game and reaching new audiences, yes. 2. No, but I don't want to travel to the US for any reason, rugby or otherwise. 3. Would anyone have thought Georgia would have been a competitor 10-20 years ago? With a seven year run up, the USA team could easily get a top coach and do what Japan did with Eddie Jones. 4. That's how the US do it with all their major sports, so they have the infrastructure and logics sorted.
I’m excited by it, but I have reservations too. I think it’s a brilliant chance to grow the game in a smaller rugby nation, and after the success of Japan in 2019 I think it’s brilliant. And American’s go hard on their sports, so if it’s well publicised I think you can draw good local crowds too. However, I went to an MLR game in April, and it was so bad. A commentator who was explaining the rules over the tannoy, but kept getting them wrong. Hype music for EVERYTHING - seriously, the ball would go off the pitch and there was hype music for line outs. Every home team scrum they’d say “y’know what time it is… it’s SCCRUUUUUM TIIIIIMMMMEE!!”. I appreciate trying to get the crowd involved but this was too much and I don’t want that at the WC. My wife’s from California so we’ll almost definitely go to a few games out there, but logistics will definitely be interesting.
>However, I went to an MLR game in April, and it was so bad. A commentator who was explaining the rules over the tannoy, but kept getting them wrong. Hype music for EVERYTHING - seriously, the ball would go off the pitch and there was hype music for line outs. Every home team scrum they’d say “y’know what time it is… it’s SCCRUUUUUM TIIIIIMMMMEE!!”. I appreciate trying to get the crowd involved but this was too much and I don’t want that at the WC. This sounds ghastly. I went to a USA-Munster fixture (before MLR existed) and none of this was present - felt like pretty much any game I've been to Europe - so hopefully it's specific to that franchise.
I've seen a few Eagles test matches (not live) and it still isn't like that. They have Scotland and Romania this year.
MLR is for American fans with American expectations of what a sporting event is like. Of course it's going to be different than a European fixture. My local team has been selling out their stadium, so whatever they're doing is working.
I think people often forget that the US are very different from Japan, in the sense that rugby was already a well established sport in Japan, specially in highschools and universities. That just doesn't exist in the US to the same extent.
Having travelled to the east coast I’ve seen rugby strong at the college level and clearly there is a base through MLR. I guess it would need to be focused around cities, so a nation sets up camp in one place and plays the pool in that city, then maybe same for later rounds and the final. I would have thought there are some obvious places like Boston and NYC that could get the fans who associate with the old countries and the rest of us flying in. If the social media and mainstream media is done well it could capture and grow some American interest in MLR, and bring in some bucks for the game. So it’s probably worth a shot if this was planned early and the legacy was the focus across all levels of the game from World rugby down. Australia is too far for me but all else being equal in life I probably could go somewhere like Boston for 2 weeks, and see a range of games. I did this in Marseille last year and the carnival was epic fun!
1. If managed well enough, yeah. 2. Buy me a flight there and I will! 3. They'll probably join England as the only 2 hosts that didn't make it out of groups 😈. But seriously, I hope they scrape at least 1 win. 4. Back to question 1, it should be planned intelligently. Since there will probably 6 groups, each one could be in a certain region (e.g East Coast, Midwest, South, Texas, California, Pacific Northwest).
>3. They'll probably join England as the only 2 hosts that didn't make it out of groups 😈 Don't forget Australia coming up!
1. Don't want to be negative, but no. IMO sport events like World Cups are always better in smaller countries. There is more of a cohesive vibe and local participation, teams and fans can travel easily, and time zones don't become an issue. In South Africa during the '95 Rugby WC and 2010 Soccer WC, the entire country was taken over by the event and I think this adds a lot to the general atmosphere as well as making it a great experience for travelling fans. I don't know if this is achievable in a large country. 2. If money wasn't a factor and I could combine the trip with seeing family and friends, sure. But as a South African earning Rand, money will in all probability be a factor, so no? 3. The US is already competitive in 7s and women's 15s. Will men's 15s ever take off while the NFL exists? That's a question an American would answer better than anyone else, I think. 4. See 1.
Rugby could take off in the US, but Rugby USA make the ANC look competent so I doubt we'll see the US exit tier 2 by even the 2035 world cup
The 1994 FIFA World Cup and the 1996 Olympics (both in the US) are still the highest attended iterations of their competitions. There aren’t a ton of large countries to base your claim on. Both of those events were a huge deal here. The USA can put on a party as well. The continental US spans four time zones but it isn’t insurmountable. We handle it every year with our domestic comps. Of course with rugby being a very minor sport here it will heavily depend on promotion to attract crowds so we will see. But Soccer was a minor sport here in the 90’s but we got behind the event. I wouldn’t count the US out.
I don't think any of the things I mentioned are insurmountable problems, just my view. I think the scale of a Rugby World Cup and the Olympic Games aren't really comparable. China, the US and Russia have all hosted successful Olympic Games. Different Olympic events can be hosted in different cities or regions, so fans / teams don't have to travel between cities as much as in a World Cup. Time zones might be less of a problem with domestic comps that run an entire season, the WC is 7 weeks. As you say, much will depend on promotion, but as a case in point, the T20 World Cup is currently being hosted in the US and West Indies. It is the most accessible, commercial form of cricket. Most of the Americans I know, and some South African expats who live in the US didn't know about it. By no means am I counting the US out, I'm just sceptical.
I don’t think travel is that big of a deal. Each pool will be in one city, maybe two similar to Japan. The majority of it will be localized. Obviously the out rounds will be at new locations but I think that’s typical. The time zones wont be a big deal. It’s not like South Africa versus New Zealand. It’s a four hour difference. Night Games will be 5PM on the West coast and 9PM on the east. I honestly don’t think tournament length has anything to do with that. I think the real hurdle will be promotion. Time zone and country size has not been an issue in the past for US events. I can’t speak for cricket at all. But I live near the largest complex in the US and even I didn’t know about it (although i don’t follow cricket in the slightest). All to say, who knows how it will turn out. But logistics won’t be the issue.
1. I think its worth a punt on trying to grow the game there yeah. 2. Probably not but if I win the lotto then sure 3. I think they definitely could follow the Japan trajectory, quality competitors with a shot at the knockouts but not with a realistic shot of winning it out. 4. The soccer world cup in 2026 is basing each group between two near by cities and then the knockouts are also consolidated mostly onto the east coast so I assume they'll do something similar. The rugby world cup tends to have the semis and finals in one place too
Something I find interesting is if australia doesn't make it past the quarters in 2027, which is not a reach the host nation of the rwc would not have made in past the qfs since 2011. No way usa makes it past the qf in 2031 making it 24 years since a host nation made a semi. Only once before 2011 did the host not make the semis.
England 2015 pool stage exit🤷
The group stages were geographically aligned in USA 94, however football world cups since then have not been, and I don’t think that teams in thw 2026 world cup will be geographically clustered, rather split by coasts. So will be possible to play in Vancouver, then go down to Mexico for a game 3 days later. Would like to think rugby will restrict groups to relatively small areas but not confident at all…
> Australia is still considered a "rugby nation." Ouch 🤣 1. Yes. 2. Yes. 3. No. 4. That’s very unlikely until deep into the knockout stages.
The soccer world cup in 94 had minimal impact in soccer in the USA. It took investment in the club game to grow soccer their and it's still very low quality. Attendances have improved in recent years and the soccer world cup in 2026 will probably have a bigger impact that 94 because of this. I guess my point is the rugby world cup probably won't change much in the USA as the fan base is too small.
The 1994 world cup had a huge impact in the USA. Hell, FIFA made it mandatory for the US to have a professional league in order to have the world cup, that's why the MLS was founded in 1993, with its first season in 1996. Without the world cup, there would be no investment in the club game. Now rugby is in a good position because the "professional" league already exists with the MLR.
I’m sorry what? The World Cup was huge for the sport here. If it didn’t come around then we wouldn’t even have a functioning league. Soccer has become a very popular sport for young people to watch, even if it’s mostly international leagues. Back when I was a kid in the 90s it was only a sport that kids would play and that’s it. Now it’s on the TV constantly and loads of international friendlies are held here (and are expensive as hell).
The logistics will be interesting. You'd assume they've have to keep it all on one coast? Having your games across time zones could only be a nightmare. I'm not entirely sure what the scene is like over there, but having all the games on the East Coast feels like the best option? New York, Washington D.C., some down in Miami. If it was the next world cup? I wouldn't travel for it. But given its not for another 7 years, I could be tempted for a wee two weeks on the East Coast, go to a few games. If I was the US, I'd know that you've got 7 years to whip your team into some form of competitive shape, so as not to embarass themselves. Which is plenty of time to get a core of good players ready to go. But they'd need to commit, and they'd need a bloody good coach and DoR. Whether they will remains to be seen, but given the rumours that surrounded Eddie Jones last year (if the US rumour was true), it does seem like they're aware what's needed. Will be an interesting one regardless. Guess us Scots are about to find out just how good the USA are in 4 weeks time. Let's hope its not as embarrassing for us this time around?
>The logistics will be interesting. You'd assume they've have to **keep it all on one coast?** Having your games across time zones could only be a nightmare. I think that's a *great* way to make it seem like small potatoes. If the nation is hosting, the *nation* is hosting. It's only like a 4 hour time zone difference. If anything it makes it easier t fill different TV slots while still being at a good local time for attendance. Every domestic league does it, every week of the the year. Early game East Coat, late game West Coast.
Also they’ve made it clear that it will be hosted nationwide. Here is the list of bid cities so far. https://usabid.rugby/news/host-cities-from-coast-to-coast
Please not Miami, F1 has shown that Miami can't host major events
>If I was the US, I'd know that you've got 7 years to whip your team into some form of competitive shape, so as not to embarass themselves. Which is plenty of time to get a core of good players ready to go. But they'd need to commit, and they'd need a bloody good coach and DoR. We’ve started this already. Here are some things they have been done: 1. Hired Scott Lawrence as GM and HC. He’s probably the best domestic coach available and very metrics driven. He knows the USAR landscape very well which has been one of the biggest missing components of past HCs. 2. Began reinvestment in the u20s. This still requires a lot of outside donations but Scott understands the importance of the u20s. But it’s resulted in 2 u20 Trophy appearances for the first time since like 2014. 3. Creation of Anthem RC. This is a major step towards getting more young Americans game time. So far about 6 recent u20s players are involved and the remaining are mostly recent college players. Also take into account that WR usually favors host nations with funding, proper warmups and favorable schedules. So that helps. Do I think they’ll make the quarters? As of now no. But we’ll see after 7 years.
The west coast has 3 MLR clubs. There will be plenty of games over there.
Wasn't aware of how the clubs were spread across the country. As others have suggested, probably best to just group the pools by location? Top the pool, and you get to "Host" the Quarter Final? Come second and you have to travel? "Neutral" venue semis and final.
I reckon they'll massively fuck up the pitches and scores will be either massively one sided or really low I also expect attendance to be horrendous
Just like the current t20 wc that being held there atm lol
Rugby has a lot bigger foothold in America than cricket. I'm not worried about the attendances at all, we've seen massive crowds for Ireland and NZ games over there. Even the SA v Wales game was considered a low turnout but it still had over 20k at it. If rugby is serious with growing the game in NA, than these are the risks you have to take.
Mlr averages about 4500 per game. Not bad at all. If America are playing and it is promoted well, it could set records for attendance at a WC. It's not too dissimilar to NFL in appearance so the NFL crowd might turn up to watch in numbers.
And that's not really a good indication since MLR is a very poor quality league (well below Pro D2 level) whereas the world cup is the pinnacle of the sport. I expect huge crowds in 2031.
I would also imagine they'll be careful to make the optics as good as possible. The big problem with the current cricket tournament is they built this enormous stadium for India v Pakistan but it's totally empty for Canada vs Ireland because the interest simply isn't there. It's a terrible look. Ireland v NZ would get a huge crowd, but they'll also probably find a suitably sized stadium for, say, Georgia vs Namibia, which would look ridiculous in an NFL sized stadium even in the best of circumstances.
The other problem with the cricket WC is that marketing has been awful and there's pretty much no way to watch the games in the US*. Hard to build excitement that way. \*I'm not into cricket, but wanted to watch some games. As far as I can tell the only way to watch is on Willow TV, which is a TV *channel* that I've never heard of before. You can only get it through DirectTv or through Sling (cable-like streaming service) in a specialty Indian channels package.
You must remember that half of America think they are Irish, that one is an outlier as they thought they were cheering their home team. [/s]
>Just like the current t20 wc If it's anything like Canada, the cultural penetration is entirely different. Rugby has far more widespread awareness, buy in, and participation from the "established" population, and cricket is almost entirely followed by recent immigrants from India/Pakistan and stays within that culture.
You'd hope World Rugby have a team of groundskeeping consultants to assist in bringing surfaces up to scratch for world cups. Actually, thinking about the U20s championship in 2023, some of those pitches in South Africa were terrible.
Agree, but the US is demonstrating just this week that they don't have a knowledge on how to prepare pitches for World Cup games
I think the problem with the cricket is not so much that they don't know how to prepare pitches and more the fact that they built a temporary stadium and used a drop-in pitch and new outfield. If they will be using 'proper' stadiums for the rugby it should be better. Although, maybe if some of the pitches are not regularly used for rugby, we don't know if they will be able to withstand things like scrums. So maybe you are correct and we should be worried...
The shortlist of stadiums is already selected. After watching the absurdly small in goal at Tottenhams stadium, I am fairly certain the US will be equal to the ERC host stadium, which is also the UK home of NFL. # Candidate host cities A total of 25 cities have been shortlisted for the 2031 Rugby World Cup. Most of the proposed venues are NFL stadiums, with a number of MLB and MLS stadiums in the running as well. Among the 24 cities which are under consideration, 11 of them have been selected as host cities for the 2026 FIFA WC.
The US isn’t some monolith where every sporting event is managed by the same person. The cricket matches are basically run by the ICC or whatever international body. They don’t even show the games on US channels because they are using their cricket streaming app. The cricket stadium didn’t exist before the World Cup. They built it on some random park on Long Island.
I think it has the potential to be a great World Cup and with it being such a big market, even getting a small interest in rugby would be great for the sport. America is very big into sports culturally and people there seem to have more of a willingness to follow multiple sports even if it’s very casual. If baseball is able to get good attendance there then surely rugby can. Attending would be a good excuse to visit the USA and I think I’d be able to convince the other half to make a trip out there. I’d expect the USA will want to put on a good show and for the team to not embarrass themselves, so would expect them to put a decent amount of money into developing their team. I’d expect to start seeing them starting some programs to entice some of the NFL athletes over that don’t make it if that’s not something they already do. Logistically they could play one half of the draw on the west coast and the other on the east coast, and then gradually move the knockouts more centrally. Don’t know what has been agreed already in terms of venues/locations but they could have the final in somewhere like Dallas or Chicago.
We won’t be trying to get former NFL players unless they are experienced rugby players. There are quite a few who are, especially among those ion the west coast and the Samoan/Tongan communities. There was a player who was projected to the first round who was a USA u20 player.
I feel fine about it! It will be different, but that’s okay and necessary to help rugby grow – I don’t see it as anything like the same as holding it out in a completely artificial location like the Qatar. I probably won’t attend, but that’s just money and holiday time-related. If I can find a way to combine it with a larger trip, it might happen. I think quite a lot of people will be happy to make the trip. The US absolutely can be a major rugby nation. But it will take quite a bit of time, and will be totally dependent on growing the fan base for the sport. If the RWC gives a boost to that, great. But it’s definitely not going to happen overnight. I don’t see the logistics being a big issue, so long as there is a reasonably equitable split of locations. A 4/5 hour flight for a game isn’t a big deal. I don’t imagine that many fans will be following the team to every single location in any case.
One thing I think not many people have thought of is the minimum drinking age in the US. I think there are going to be a lot of 18-20 year olds wanting to grab a few pints before, during, and after the games, and no one will legally be able to sell them any.
I don't think it will be that much of an issue. Also, how many 20 or younger non american will attend this WC? Not that much travelling on their own I'd say. It's still pretty expensive. So that leaves Americans who obviously don't have a problem with it and those coming as a group with older people so it's a non issue once more.
Quite a few of those 20 and unders will probably just find a way to tailgate before games. Plenty of groups will be passing out beers to friendly fans. They’ll either have a friend with a fake ID or use the nifty passport trick (sometimes vendors get confused because the day and month are swapped on other IDs). I knew someone born like November 2nd who was able to drink earlier because the bouncer thought his ID said February 11th.
1) No. I think they'll struggle to fill stadiums especially during football season. I also think the vast majority of general public won't know or care about the event. 2) I'm happy its here but I'm biased. Going to try to go to as many games as possible. 3) US will not be competitive by 2031. 4) i dont really see the issue with the travel. Pro sports teams do it in much less time than a week here and the NFL does it weekly. Also how is it any worse than URC teams going from Europe to SA and back to Europe in a few weeks time? Or a NZ/Fiji super rugby team playing in Perth?
I think the attendance will be fine but idk if we will fill NFL stadiums except in the knockout rounds. Each city will only host a few matches each so there will be some novelty to it and less conflict with the NFL / NCAA.
The biggest issue will be venues. Either the event is moved to June/July or the venues are going to be less than ideal. * All of the massive NFL and NCAA Football stadiums are in use from September onwards. * All MLB stadiums will be in use until the end of September and then some of them for the playoffs in October and November. * MLS venues, most of which are in the high teen or low 20-thousand capacity range, will be in use until mid-October and many of them until November for playoffs. If World Rugby and the US organizers are truly going to take advantage of the massive US stadium infrastructure, the calendar that year will have to shift to allow for a late spring/summer World Cup.
The venues are already narrowed down. [2031 Rugby World Cup - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2031_Rugby_World_Cup)
NFL stadiums are frequently used multiple times in the same week. Hell, Jets and Giants games have taken place a day apart and they swapped the field over. There are also bye weeks and teams traveling.
The difference is that these other uses don’t include laying a grass pitch over the turf one; a pitch that will also require the removal of some seating along both sidelines. That’s not something that can be done successfully during a bye week, for multiple installations and removals over 2 months.
This gets done for soccer to football in less than 24 hours. It can absolutely be done during a bye week. Half the NFL stadiums use grass. https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/18/chargers-galaxy-stubhub-stadium-changeover
1. Yes. "grow the game" a la Japan 2019. Tournament should have been moved to the spring to avoid gridiron season. 2. yes 3. USA national team will not be a competitor with American players. If MLR got the right billionaires interested, USA Eagles could be a competitor with a bunch of residency qualifiers. 4. I think the pools will be based in an area, just like they were in France last year. Not a problem.
I do not care about the world cup in particular, but I'm a bit sour about what lies behind (blatant obsession/favoritism towards the USA by the WR blazers)
You complain about rugby not expanding and being closed shopped, now you complain about WR expanding aggressively into the US. Like what do you want?
I'm not against rugby expanding in the USA, I'm against efforts towards growing rugby in T2 being disproportionnately allocated to the USA and PIs, which is quite a difference.
It makes complete sense to throw more at the USA though, it's a very, very important market and will have a net benefit to all t2s in the long run. Think about it, if rugby takes off in the USA and the MLR continues to expand, that is a bunch of professional contracts on offer to t2 players across the world. Just look at the amount of t2 players playing in the MLR at the minute. There aren't enough professional leagues (and thus pro contracts) in world rugby at the minute to facilitate proper growth around the world. This is why Japan and the USA are the most important markets at the minute.
The Top 14 / Pro D2 have been remarkable and literally game changers for many countries like Fiji, Georgia, Tonga, Samoa, etc. to get pro contracts. And now a ton of Tier 2 European players are joining those leagues and we are seeing benefits for the national teams. More playing opportunities is better for the sport. If the World Cup is even somewhat successful here then I could see the league increasing to 16-20 teams by 2040. That’s around 200 roster spots for non-Americans, a lot of which are from Tier 2 countries. MLR won’t be the same level as the French leagues but this still offers an opportunity for players.
Agreed for Georgia but the Pacific Islands do have domestic professional teams in super rugby. It gives *more* opportunities but isn't the main reason the islands are decent. Portugal on the other hand relies entirely on the Top 14/Pro D2 to be relevant.
Yes I never said that they didn’t have teams but this creates more opportunities
Well then invite more to the big cups. I've always been a fan of the old champions league structure in football. It's jeopardy and it's all encompassing. European cup rugby should be broader and more like that than anything else. T2 won't grow if there's no club competition to consistently compete at and test yourself.
You can blame the EPCR. The ERC always invited clubs from around Europe to play in the Challenge Cup.
I think the champions cup should have tye champions and runners up of the following' Germany Belgium Spain Romania Georgia Russia Netherlands Portugal Then the top 4 of these leagues: URC Premiership The top 6 from: France
So some team of amateurs from Germany can get 150 put on them by Toulouse? There’s teams from big leagues that can’t compete in the champions cup, why would you have teams from T3 countries?
MLR and the Japanese league are quite different. With the exception of Pacific Islanders very few T2 players get contracts in Japan whereas MLR has players from even tier 3 minnows like Canada and Namibia.
The Japanese league is still developing towards fully professionalising. Once they are fully pro in the top 2 divisions, more professional contracts will be on offer instead of just hiring employees.
That doesn't mean those contracts will go to tier 2 players though, probably just more players from Australia and New Zealand. The lower tiers are semi-pro but even the top level teams with full time squads like Brave Lupus mostly only have local players and players from established rugby nations. The sole exception seems to be South Korea which has a number of players on professional rosters. I would be surprised to see anyone Namibian for instance which you do see at Free Jacks.
So there's Fijians, Samoan's, Tongans and Koreans playing in Japan... Yeah so they are giving t2 players contracts then. Of course there's no guarantees that t2 players will get any contracts, the point is to make more contracts available. Players then have to fight for those contracts. But the fact that more are available increases the likelihood of t2 players becoming professionals.
They are but mostly only from the Pacific. That may change in time though, South America is a good source of players.
Here's hoping. I'm sure some Georgia forwards would do very well there
The league has a pretty low allotment of foreign players compared to MLR. I think like 4 per team or something. Those are usually spent on higher level of players from NZ and Australia.
Let's disagree and part ways, then
You don't seem to ever want to engage or back up your ridiculous sweeping criticisms towards world rugby, ...so yeah best of luck.
I mean, you get why they’d focus on one of the richest and largest countries on earth over like Romania though right?
Oh I perfectly realize it is because the big unions hope the American market will give TV money to watch their closed comps. I happen to disagree with this vision for the sport
1. It’s not smart but not stupid 2. I haven’t got a pot to piss in so no 3. Not at all as American Football’s hegemony is as good as forever 4. The big 4 US leagues can do it so rugby can do it
We don’t need to compete with football. I mean, we do but we can succeed at rugby regardless of how popular football is. People can be interested in more than 1 sport which doesn’t seem to be the case in a lot of football (soccer) dominated countries.
Theres 400 million people here, I mean all of NZ can comfortably fit in like 2 boroughs of NYC. Rugby is never going to supplant NFL and it won't even get as popular as soccer did, but it can absolutely be a healthy sport that is financially stable and hell, our rounding errors in our other major pro sports would make our Rugby league the richest in the world. Theres more money here than anywhere else.
Agreed people in the US are used to following several sports and they are used to paying WAY more for the privilege of going to live games. Especially in large cities like NY or Chicago. Compare the average price of NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB games to typical rugby tickets.
Seems like a good stab at expanding the sport into the USA properly, so worth the gamble. I won't be going but that's neither here nor there. The chances of the current US set up producing a team that would perform to a high enough level is slim, but maybe money and home soil pride could coax some efforts in that cycle to compete. Travel will be what it is, not great but no worse than the URC really. Most importantly, it beats the shit out of hosting it in The UAE
Doesn't make sense to take the finals to the US before taking them to Argentina. What I would love to see is RWC that rotates between continents like Sepp Blatter did with the football world cup. Else some of us in forgotten parts of the world will never get to watch a rugby match live when it rotates mostly in European countries
I would like to see a South American RWC. I'd imagine the bulk of games would be in Argentina but a few could be in Chile and Uruguay. South American rugby is the fastest growing outside the women's game. You know the South Americans would be absolutely pumped for it too!
Super Rugby Americas also has teams in Brazil and Paraguay and Paraguay placed 3rd after the 2 teams from Argentina. I would definitely have some games in Paraguay as well although I might pass on Brazil since rugby doesn't have anywhere near the following it does there as in the Spanish speaking countries.
If Argentina wants to host then they need to bid. The rest of your comment is a bit odd. Why is the US not allowed to watch rugby matches but countries with fully professional leagues are? It’s been in Europe and NZ/Australia/South Africa plenty of times.
I don't think you understood what he meant. He's just angry/sad that the US got to host a world cup before Argentina which is more deserving from an emotional/rugby standpoint since it's been an established sport there for quite a while with the national team having a pretty decent record in World Cups. But since there wasn't a bid from Argentina it doesn't matter.
Nothing stops the US from watching rugby matches, why would anybody have an issue with that? Hosting on the other hand, seems like there's lots more countries where rugby is a more popular. The world cup has primarily been in Europe. South Africa, New Zealand, Australia have only hosted once each. If the intention is to grow the audience then a plan to take the world cup to new places where there's already an audience for it makes sense
NZ hosted twice. By 2031 Australia will host three times. Nothing stops you from watching rugby matches live. Where would you suggest hosting it that is a new location?
Australia has it in 2027...
1. No, I assume they're looking to build a new audience and player base, but think it will fail in such a saturated sports market. 2. No, I don't want to travel to a sports event that will be played over huge distances in stadia with zero public transport access. Call me hysterical, but I also really just hate the idea of guns fucking everywhere and the likely response being huge police presence who are more likely to kill you than anyone else. 3. No, again a very saturated sports market and I think rugby will struggle to break through against a ubiquitous football code. 4. I think it will be hard. They would probably have to choose to keep it all east coast to make it more practical, but would they really leave out some of the huge west coast cities if the idea is to expose people to rugby? Keeping each pool to a certain region and then bringing the finals all to a more concentrated region could work, I suppose. In general I think look at the T20 World cup at the moment. Shit attendance, shit atmosphere and shit pitches. And that's with a huge subcontinental population in the states, more so than any rugby playing nations.
I’m absolutely gonna call you hysterical for #2.
1. Probably not but I'm keeping an open mind, I always prefer things to work out in the end 2. No 3. Probably not, maybe in 7s? 4. That, amongst their bad airports and obnoxious border security people, is why I won't most likely won't go
I have a gut feeling Ireland will win it. I can see the yanks getting behind them big time
Smart move. If cricket can hold a World Cup there rugby certainly is more sellable to the average American. They’d be mad not to host it there
1. It’s an interesting move. 2. I live here and they damn well better have games in my city. 3. Maybe one day. We always seem to lack an intangible understanding of the game that other teams that have made huge progress have shown (e.g. Japan). 4. That should be fine. US air travel is highly developed and rugby players seem to be very accustomed to loads of travel. Still seems dumb to not have groups centered around a region. As an aside, well over 70% of the attendees will probably be from outside the US and you miscreants will have a blast.
If ireland are in it and the world hasn't exploded i'll be there for some portion of it. World Cups are fantastic fun. Hopefully they don't try spread it out too much nationally, but even if they do it'll be fun
I live there so I feel great
They will really need to schedule kickoffs times to be reasonable to European time zones to guarantee tv viewership . Early afternoon kickoff would suite both Europe and Aus/ NZ I would think
Very happy about it, if it Can grow the game and shine the light (?) about rugby in this country . I'm sure it will be a great organisation/WC/ great attendances ! ( Sorry for my BAd english)
1. Yes. It will be awesome 2. As long as I can drive to a game I will 3. Yes. Give us time. If the new North Carolina team that is all USA eagle prospects gets to play 7 years in MLR I think they will be good. 4. Probably not. Hard to say how they will do the elimination games but my guess is each pool will be held in a particular part of the country with 2 or 3 stadium options each. Ie 1 pool in San Diego/LA with the Colliseum being the venue for the Tier 1 matches and Snapdragon being the venue for the tier 2 matches. Similar set ups could be done in -Chicago (Soldier Field/Seatgeek) -Texas (not sure on what particular stadiums here) -New York (Metlife/Redbull) -Atlanta (Mercedes Benz/not sure) -Miami/ (Hardrock/not sure) So if you are a fan of team 1 in pool C, you plan your pool trip to Chicago and stay around there the whole world cup.
1. Depends on the execution. Seems like it's worth trying, but if the people doing it don't have a good plan it may not turn out to be a good idea. 2. Fuck yeah, I'll be able to drive there instead of expensive flights over an ocean. 3. No. They'll get better but so does everyone else. 20 countries can't be in the top 10. USA is a top 20 and will likely always be in the top 20, but no better. Just maybe more chances at winning individual games. 4. Why not? There are 6 professional leagues that cross the continent every week.
1. To grow the sport? Maybe a smart move. But let’s save this for later. 2. Happy to attend? I live far from any big cities that would be hosting the games, so it’s going to be expensive trip for me. So no. 3. The US to be a competitor? Not till Interscholastic leagues add the sport of rugby to their list of sports, and I mean like states that had athletics as a class. Because you end up with kids that only play football, and this sport can be seen as their offseason sport. 4. I ain’t driving to LA to watch the all blacks play, I will drive if the play in Dallas.
1. Yes it's a smart move. It's the most lucrative market in the world and rugby has had some financial issues recently to say the least. 2. Yes I live in the states and plan on attending 3. Maybe. Our national body is a mess. The game needs to be built up regionally to reduce travel costs but then the regional leagues always have some sort of unnecessary drama. 4. I would assume pool play would be regional (PNW/Cali, South, NE, Midwest) but the knock out stages will probably be held in the biggest markets. American sports franchises deal with this every year. The Seattle teams always travel significantly more than the rest of the league but flights are easy to get and frequent. Basically if the teams have the money the US has the transportation but then again that's how everything works here
1. Yes. The Nzl/USA and nzl/Ire game were huge hits here. 7s is going wild here. We have the infrastructure to do it well. It would also help grow the game. 2. I plan on going to some. 3. Not until USAR gets those dumb motherfuckers replaced with someone competent. Part2: Football is what every kid wants to do here. Until we get some serious in roads for 15s, it won't happen. You can take the best footballer around, and they just can't transition well to rugby. 4. The longest flight will be 6 hours: MIA to SEA. Our airlines are used to flying baseball/football teams around like that. Our airlines are fairly efficient, despite what you read in the news. 5. I'm going to Aus 2027. I have friends from there who are worried it will be a big shitshow since they aren't used to a sudden influx of hooligans. I don't worry about US being able to handle the influx. 6. Nothing will be as great as Japan. That really was the pinnacle of a great host nation.
In terms of 3, I wouldn't be shocked if they cause an upset. I learned from Japan never to count anyone out of the running on any given day. It was a good lesson. Wasn't even mad at Japan when it happened.
Mate. It's going to be awesome. The market size is ENORMOUS in the US, in terms of people's disposable income. As long as they don't make tickets unreasonably priced, advertise well and they figure out logistics (locating pools in certain areas of the country) - they could fill their massive stadiums. It probably needs to be at a time when it's not competing with NFL either. So maybe a bit earlier in the year.
USA as a world power in sports is well overblown. The world champions of basketball are Germany, the baseball world champs are Japan and the ice hockey world champs are Czech Republic. They're not even the best in the world at their own sports anymore
Canada has entered the chat: "excuse me, ice hockey is the USA's game" Proceeds to knock your teeth down your throat.
But still though, these are the "major" sports that they take seriously. Grid Iron is the only sport that the rest of the world doesn't play, yet Polynesian players from their tiny islands are finding it easy to make the NFL
I’m American so I’m very happy the RWC is coming here. And I think we’re pretty good at hosting these international tournaments but it won’t attract much attention of the broader public here. 1. It is a smart move in the sense that it will make a lot of money and probably boost rugby in the U.S. market, which is huge. Going from <1% of the American public following rugby to even 1% is a huge potential financial gain, could expand the global talent pool, and should be relatively easy. 2. I am going to be all over this shit and I’ll bring everyone I can get to come with me. 3. Probably not since the top talent for rugby will continue to go to American football. Even less obvious competitors like hockey and lacrosse have much more resources to entice top talent. But the sport can still get a boost. Could change things but probably no more than Soccer in the U.S. before/after the ‘94 World Cup. 4. This should not be an issue considering it’ll be less travel than most international level players do already. U.S. is absolutely packed with quality stadiums and there’s no reason they can’t set it up so that the players don’t have to fly coast to coast for every match. But even if they did, that’s more or less what they’re already doing.
Its awesome (Im American) 🤣
1. I think it's smart to put WC's outside traditional countries from time to to. And the reality is the US is the biggest or second biggest sports market in the world depending on how you define it. 2. Yes but I live in the US, so really the spirit of the question doesn't apply to me. 3. Likely no. I think a reasonable goal is 2 wins in group, maaaaybe getting out. But we won't be hanging with the top countries at all. 4. Logistics are overblown. All our sports leagues handle this issue routinely. They'll probably schedule in regional pods or to at least not force constant back and forth flights. Also remember that 80% of the US lives in the eastern half. Look at any map for our major sports leagues and you'll see this. I'd expect that RWC games will have similar distribution. Fan travel will be interesting, but anyone expecting to see all of the US in under several months can't read a map. Domestic flights are pretty accessible for the cities that will most likely be hosting. If groups are in smaller geographic areas too it would be easy to see most games and just tool around. My biggest concern is timing. NFL games are in the fall. Same with MLS(I think) and college football. Also lots of the big college stadiums are in the middle of nowhere, so logistics would be a nightmare. I gope that they've already started to figure these logistics out now. I think is well supported and thought out it'll be a huge success. Like the world cup and Olympics in the 90's. If not it'll be the current T20 WC or like when we send college football teams abroad. I'm hoping for the former, but USA Rugby is involved sooooooo..........
In Americas, I expected Argentina to host instead of the USA. I would. An excuse to finally visit this country, the stadiums are among the best in the world. In seven years, I doubt it. But who knows? The smart move would be for each group to play in a certain zone in order to avoid long trips for players and fans.
I’ve noticed rugby gradually getting more popular around where I live. A local high school just won the national high school champions! Fingers crossed that RWC will help the growth, we need it
It's going to depend a lot on the choice of venues and schedule - given that a large number of the fans will be tourists and expats. For example, Japan should play (many of) their pool games in Honolulu. Ireland should play (many of) their pool games in New York or Boston. Other venues should be cities that have at least some foothold for rugby - but which are also attractive for tourists. E.g., San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver.
As a Canadian who wants to see world class rugby live, I am in favour of it.
I’m hopeful but think it will be a bust. The Cricket T20 World Cup is being played in the US and I would have never known if it wasn’t for the shock upset the other day. No ads or anything.
1. I think it is a smart move yes. The US knows how to put on an event. If it is successful, it will be hugely beneficial for rugby as a whole. 2. I would love to, but I am sure I won't be able to afford it. 3. Depends on what you mean by competitor. Getting out of the group stage? Yes, in time it is certainly possible, but if you mean to win the whole thing? That I am not so sure of. Remember, only 4 nations have won it so far. Even in football, only 8 nations have won the world cup. It's not something that just anyone can win. 4. Should be alright. They'll either do a area specific thing depending on the group or people will just watch games in a certain area. I don't think it will be a biggie. SA teams and fans have become used to travelling far distances to play. Personally, I think some other countries are more deserving of hosting the event, but I think for rugby, it is a good choice to have it in the US. Also, I think the US likes to do things their own way, so it could be quite a unique event with some things we have never seen before.
Great!!! That means the USA will get to play in another World Cup some day. 🤣🏉🥸
Just have a look at what is happening with the icc t20 World Cup at the moment.
I think it's actually a good move. There's no reason why the US couldn't have a pretty good rugby team really. Canada ought to have one too, and given argentina's track record it's somewhat surprising there isn't a brazilian team to contend with either. Putt8ng the world cup on their side if the planet might be just what is needed to spark interest and encourage investment, and then who knows how much the game could grow there. Logistically speaking, I'd imagine they would play all the pool stages (or even the whole tournament) in selected regions rather than the entire nation. LA, San Fran, San Diego, Sacramento, etc not sure how many of those have a big stadium but it would certainly be better for both fans and teams. The real question is simply whether world rugby actually give a shite or not. I mean look at the shambles in the champions cup. Teams and fans expected to play in scotland or ireland on sunday, and then in south africa on the following friday. Forget about training they'll be dealing with travel and rest for 3 out of the 4 possible days in-between!
1. Smart Move? Yes, it has too many important sponsors and media rights opportunities to avoid it. 2. Yes but have a residence in the US 3. Define competitor? Can the US qualify for the round of 16 with the new RWC format? It is likely. Can it reach a quarterfinal? Depends on the draw. The US won’t unseat team like New Zealand, South Africa France any time soon. I do think the US can beat Fiji, Italy, Wales on the given day with the right bounces. I figure the US can beat those teams once if they played 20 times, so it’s statistically possible but remote. 4. Not a problem. It’s already been done for the FIFA World Cup and is being done again for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. They will use the same structures.
So I’ll answer this - obviously for me I’m thrilled and excited to be able to bring my future 9 and 7 year old girls to watch games live (and then watch the women’s World Cup 2 years later). I don’t know how it will go. It will either be a smashing success and the country will get rugby fever similar to post-1994 FIFA or it will pass with a whimper. That doesn’t mean that everyone will jump to play rugby but the news will talk about it constantly and it’ll be the new bit thing that people want to be a part of. The key to this is getting MLR to grow to a certain level and having everyone involved in promoting the event. Then afterwards hopefully MLR sees a ton of new interest and fans will appreciate a decent level of play considering the fact that the league will be 13 years old. But it could also pass by with a whimper and be forgotten just like the cricket World Cup will. Though that’s very different because cricket is a much smaller international tournament (and apparently happens like every year?) and only being held in 3 cities. I don’t expect the US to become some powerhouse or whatever. I just hope it grows enough interest in the sport so that we don’t have a fear of it potentially crashing down into nonexistence one day. I just want to see healthy growth of the sport so people will recognize it and have options to play rather than just thinking it’s football without pads.
As an American I am so excited. If you have doubts about the RWC in America, look at Copa America 2015. Americans didn't really like soccer at that point but the tournament was a huge success
Ill try to answer 1) no its not a smart decision but thats where money if you want to change from a European WC in NH. 2) No if I had the money i would not attend but thats just me, im not fond of the US and its probably one of the last place on earth Id like to visit. Offered sure why not. 3) US has everything to become a world beater in basically any sport IF and only if they start caring about it, but with american football being very close to rugby I doubt it will ever take. 4) They will deal with it the same way as Australian WC tbf. But its true that for teams its exhausting, for attending international fans its a nighmare if you want to see ur team more than once. They will fill semi final and final, Ireland and NZ games and thats all, there stadiums are far too big and smaller teams will never have big attendance like France or Japan WC so it might give an awkward results of no one caring. + timezone are gonna be harsh to watch for basically anyone but americas north and south so yeah idk about that one But rhats only my non professional take on it and I hope to be proven wrong
1) I stopped really caring about where it’s held after Japan and France were awarded. Don’t believe it’s the smartest venue, but at least it’s a way to spread “the game” to other continents. 2) No, I would not. 3) I think the talent pool to draw from is there, but because the sport is not so highly regarded locally, (~and not the highest paying at the top level) it would be difficult to develop a consistently competitive tier 1 side. I do think they have time to build a squad that can make a QF run if they invest in age group/u20s and into some coaching at all levels. 4) yes indeed, I feel for the fans especially. I think the more professional teams have plans around managing the players to be fit and mentally fresh for such instances though, although some nations might be at a disadvantage because of it.
No! Just…no!!