Well in February next year the World Sevens Series is holding a tournament in California for the first time, which should build some media profile in the US. The sevens series is an annual event with tournamnets around the world playing an abbreviated version of the game, seven aside, with seven minute halves (ten minutes for final matches) with countries from around the world participating. It’s a lot of fun, as there’s 2-3 games to watch each hour for two days running, Califonian dopers should definately check it out.
As for international audiences, the last World Cup in 1999 had an estimated television audience of3 billion people . 1.75 million people actually attended the games - big numbers for any sport I’d say.
I’m the resident know-it-all geek among my friends, and I didn’t know the Rugby World Cup existed. Sorry. You can’t follow everything in the world.
It’s the same old story: America is a whole continent’s worth of people doing its own thing, and that takes up enough time as it is.
I just last week tried to watch rugby on FS World, but without anyone to explain it, I was just lost. It seems that getting tacked isn’t that big a deal. You still keep the ball, and someone else goes on. Huh.
Nah, it won’t. There’s simply too much else for the media to care about, to bother showing a semi-exhibition rugby tournament from the other side of the country. It’ll be lucky to get one mention outside of a 3 minute filler of a human interest piece in some local news program in LA.
I’m involved with our local rugby club and I definitely think the lack of youth clubs hurts rugby in the U.S. Some teams (the Grand Rapids, MI club comes to mind) actively recruit and train younger kids and have youth programs set up to get kids involved at a younger age. Until the U.S. gets a better feeder system going, we’re going to have local clubs that look like our club - youngest member is about 17, oldest (playing!) member is almost 50. We struggle to have enough players for each game and the team is still tied for 1st in its league. Our players are either ex-pats from rugby-playing countries, learned in college, or are just learning now. One of our best players is a 19 year old who was a high school football star and was looking for something to replace that now that he’s out of school.
I think a big hurdle for kids getting involved is the misconception held by many parents that rugby is inherently dangerous (even parents of football players think this). We have been trying to set up a rugby summer camp through our local rec center aimed at high school kids, but are having problems with parents allowing their kids to do it.
By the way, Fox Sports World (which is on the digital cable tier where I am) is airing the World Cup. I think it’s a 72 hour delay…I’m not sure. Last night the opening ceremony + the Australia vs. Argentina game was on, with the game starting at 8 pm Eastern. At 5 pm today is the South Africa vs. Uruguay match and tonight at 8 is Italy vs. New Zealand.
Came across the Rugby World cup Tonight, at my Aunts house. She has the Dish Network Top 150 programing, and it was on Fox Sports World. This is not pay-per-view on Dish, but it is two ‘packages’ above the ‘basic’ dish programing. If I recall correctly, it was around channel 145.
On a side note, being american and being used to American Football, I couldn’t shake the notion that play did not stop once the ball touched the ground. Given the brutalness of the sport, it seemed to “flow” rather naturaly, the players knew exactly where to be, and what to do.
I had a rough idea about rugby being Football (American) with out as many rules. I also knew that it was more violent.
I don’t think rugby is more violent. I think there are more injuries in football than rugby. I think the average career length is shorter in football than rugby, due almost entirely to the violence of the sport. I think there are more surgeries required, on average, both during a career and after retirement in football than in rugby.
Not to detract anything from rugby…I’d play a pick-up game of football, but you wouldn’t catch me within a mile of a pick-up rugby game. Those guys are nuts.
I tend to agree with Ellis here - there are strict rules on tackling in Rugby - don’t tackle a player without the ball, no high tackles - with penalties for infraction. I’m sure there are rules about it in American Football too, but to my untrained eyes, it just looks like huge people trying to kill each other, ball or no ball.
Re the stop start nature of much of American sports, my theory is that it is linked to the need to sell advertising on TV. Hence sports like baseball and American Football where basically the same thing happens for a few seconds ad infinitum as far as I can see. Maybe those advert breaks allow time for strategy rather than visa versa? Basketball and ice hockey in contrast are more flowing sports and in my view more exciting - but even in basketball you get time outs? Were they introduced just to allow more TV advertising?
Both football (soccer) and rugby are flowing sports which, when televised, run for a whole half (45 and 40 mins respectively) without an artificial break for TV to advertise, as least in the rest of the world.
Both football (soccer) and rugby are highly strategic games, especially the later, but the thinking is done mainly in advance and handled by the players on the field. Often the first time the coach has the opportunity to change the game plan is a half-time or to a lesser extent with a subsitution where the substitute carries details of the “new plan” with him onto the field to explain to the others. But tactics too are very important of course.
Oddly the very highly strategic games, where tactics take a lesser role, say cricket (or even more so, croquet!), are reducing in popularity.
Finally my take on the international versus domestic sport question is that it is a shame that the US do not complete strongly in the international games, most obviously soccer. It would do a lot of good for mutual understanding of ordinary people if US teams met international teams as a matter of routine in their major sports IMHO.
Hockey, which appears to be very similar to footie, is hanging on by a thread in the US. The NHL reportedly posted losses in excess of $300 million last season.
(Similar in the same sense as football and rugby are similar. Or baseball and cricket.)
I’m not at all surprised that the strategy-intensive games in Europe are on the decline, though I only have your word to base that on. I assert that strategy is an American passion, which plays a fairly large role in the popularity of football and baseball, and lack of popularity of footie and hockey. (In the US, obviously.)
Regarding the start-stop nature of football, we like this for the same reason we like boxing better when it has rounds. It increases the intensity of the action. This same correlation can be drawn between boxing gloves and football padding. They both allow bigger hitting. (When compared to bare-knuckle boxing and rugby.) The fact that this makes it more tv-friendly is simply a perk. The rules were in place long before television was invented.
Soccer in the US is broadcast without interruption during international games. Not sure about MLS. I’ve never seen a commercial break during an MLS game, but I get bored watching people running around chasing a ball, and the lack of hustle on the other side of the field is incomprehensible to me. While the ball is in play in football, every man on the field is going all out 95% of the time. The same cannot be said for footie. (Just look at the goalies, for example, when the ball is on the other side.)
Come to think of it, the very concept of a goalie bugs me. Seems so contrived. If footie shrunk the goal to the size of a hockey goal and removed the goalie altogether, I’d probably like it more. I’ve said for years that goalies should be removed from hockey, and the goal should be shrunk to the size of a shoe-box, a couple feet above the ice. Playoff hockey is great and all, but the name should be changed from Hockey to Goalie, because that’s pretty much all that matters.
I think that’s a universal rule. You can’t tackle the guy in football unless he has the ball, either. And in hockey, you can’t check a guy unless he has (or recently had) the puck.
But you can block anybody. And a block can be a brutally hard hit, full speed. You just can’t wrap him up with your arms or drive him into the ground. (Both are holding, a 10 yard penalty and down over.)
But when a guy has the ball, the only rule regarding how you are allowed to tackle him is that you can’t use his facemask. Everything else is fair game. You could pick him up and slam him into the ground. You could have 3 guys running full speed and hit him at the same time from the front, back, side, high, low, or wherever you please. And like hockey, you can tackle a guy who recently had the ball. (You get one step, I think, after the QB throws the ball.)
Of note is the tipped ball rule. If the pass is tipped by a defender, you can tackle anyone on the field while it’s in the air.
Not really in baseball. The stop-start nature of baseball was laid out long before television or radio. That’s just the nature of the game. And they don’t need to be between innnings to change strategy, the coaches can go onto the field and discuss things with the pitcher pretty much any time they like. Or the pitcher and catcher and infield can conference.
Football is sort of true. The basic stop-start nature with downs is long established. But TV timeouts have become commonplace, where the game will be stopped specifically so TV can cut to commercial. But it also gives me a bathroom and snack break, so it’s not all bad.
Yes, but to market to the same target audience as cricket, all the adverts would have to be the slow burning sort where nothing happens apart from “mood development” not the BUY ME!!! type.
Channel 4 actually do slip ad breaks in, even in Test Matches.
I actually like the pace of cricket, sort of like baseball but with prettier grounds and everyone dressed in white. Impossible to watch on TV mind but if you are there you can wander off have have a pee or a beer, take a nap, catch up with your letter writing, come back to the game and be up to date with what has happened in about 10 secs. Again, sort of like baseball which is an excuse to eat and drink as far as I have experienced.
A Victorian game which suits being reported in the evening papers over the three to five days it takes to complete. The pace of life was different back then; cricket was probably considered “flighty”!
