Should rugby be more noticed in the united states?

[Robert Goodman]

Rugby's already fairly well sold as a participant sport for adults in the USA, almost the way soccer is for children. The trouble with selling rugby to spectators in the USA is that it's too similar to American football. It'd be like getting att'n for softball as a major spectator sport, no matter how well it does as a participant sport.

Yet there is the model of Australia, which somehow sustains both participant and spectator interest to a high degree in several forms of football, two of which -- Rugby League (preferred there) and Rugby Union (not as popular, but not obscure) -- are as similar to each other as one of them is to American & Canadian football. American football is coming up there too, though still a distinctly minority taste. So it can be done, but not likely.

Rubgy was bigger in the USA 25-35 years ago than now, but that seems to be a result of demographics. We might've had more people playing American football then too -- a matter of having enough people the right age.

Robert in the Bronx