There is what i believe a major problem off the field that USA rugby should address,crowds. Huston was amazing and a good sign with crowds from last year and this year showing up big. i think we can all agree that the LA and New York market have been over kill, dead horse, bust and USA rugby needs to stay away from those markets for the next few years. USA rugby has now played a few games in the past few years in both markets and has yet to capitalize. so far Huston and San Jose/Santa Clara have both been great crowds for international rugby (hence the reason why i don't understand why rugbylaw will only focus on east coast teams). to a further extent and i maybe out there by my self, glendale needs to be left off for a while, to many games played in one location can exhaust the fan base in the location.
Huston is a plus and for now a permanet location for quite a few years for usa rugby to continue to return to. But what of other locations and what to do for the other home games? this is where usa rugby should rotate games amongst other cities and stadiums. even if they are 10k seat stadiums.
the bay area has undoubtedly some of the best and still
growing rugby in the country, and with two more state of the art
stadiums coming online in the next year there are plenty of facilities
and support amongst the numers growing clubs in the region. you have Stanford
stadium (50k) - levi stadium (68k expandable to 75k) - san jose
earthquakes stadium (18k with easy way to bring in temp stands to over
20k) and smaller buck shaw 10k(+) <----- take your pick
also there is the growing argument for usa rugby to finaly make a splash in the NW. oregon is limited to stadiums but still have two great locations for potential matches. portland (20k +) and eugen (54k), alittle further up you have seattle with the aging tacoma dome that can seat 5-20k, then you have centrylink field that has proven to be a huge succes with soccer averaging well over 35k a game and can seat up to 67k. mixed in with a little more smaller more intement in the shadows of the SPACE NEEDLE is the venue memorial stadium 17k.
what i have always wondered is why USAR does not rotate games amongst cities in specific regions to see whats the best fit. example is say we get 3 home test matches , why not play one in the west, another in the east, and the third game in the Midwest region. of course pending who the games are against specific games should be played in specific regions, usa vs Tonga may be played better on the west coast versus some where in the the mid west. when i say west i dont mean just California,Oregon,and Washington i am also including Nevada,Idaho and Arizona. USA soccer is very particular one where games are played to ensure the largest crowds are drawn up. Columbus has proven that when those big games are on the line they are a great place for usa soccer to turn to. Seattle recently has shown usa soccer that they can pull together great fans and atmosphere for national games.
who knows maybe Tulsa or Rochester New York, or even Columbus Ohio will be a great location with rambunctious fan support for Rugby, Indiana has been making some great strides with the youth development. with the potential chance of USA Rugby getting to host the 2018 7's world cup and even the 2023,2027 xv's world cup it would be good to show the IRB that they have more then a few cities to choose from to host events, that they have a handful of cities an regions that could easily support high profile games.
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