opinion on MLS-Rugby

This is going to be as short as i can make it, dont want to get to much into this topic.

TIAR posted yeaterday an article about how the MLS of all maybe the ones who get Professional rugby going in America.

I dont believe that the MLS them selfs ( wether its is all of them or a few teams) will be the reason why Rugby finally gets off the ground here in america, but i do believe that a handful of clubs will be the ones to start up teams in a so called league and the MLS teams will be partners in one of the many groups who are "talking" about starting up a league (union). right now we have NRFL and USA Rugby who want to get tings going, and so far NRFL are the only ones who have made progress, sort of, and USA Rugby has been all talk. Now these few mls teams who are mulling over the idea of wanting in the rugby scene are probably split on which direction to go with and it maybe a few years till we see everyone jumping on board with ether of the groups. If the NRFL does get going, and teams and players are announced we may see one or two MLS owners buying in and using there own stadiums (Huston,chicago) along with various other ownerships. if they are showing "succes" after year 2 or three that's when we could see maybe Lew wolff and Fisher here in the bay area agree to placing a team in the NRFL and same with the folks up in Seattle. OR what may happen is like i said before we could see a split of owners placing teams with different groups , those owners who want to start a rugby team.


Rugby in America is in a very strange place, people need to understand that its not just the other sports rugby has to compete with to gain a foot hold here, its the fact that its the middle child of two also popular sports SOCCER and FOOTBALL. But that doesn't mean its a bad thing. Rugby has the chance to take from both sports and professional leagues. like soccer Rugby teams need to have academies to introduce the sport in there local area to younger kids and get there skills fine tuned before they are to much older but like football rugby has the physical factor and gladiator image where they can potentially suck in your average football fan and player to convert over to rugby. football players even though may not have the endurance to keep up with the fast pace of the game make up for it with the physicality of ball handling and tackling.

Do i believe that MLS teams/owners will be involved with the Growth of rugby, absolutly! but how many are willing to stand up or are they willing to start there own rugby league, who knows?
I believe that there is at lest 4-5 potential MLS owners who do or would be good fits to start there own franchise.
1) Bay Area ( Earthquakes)
2) Huston ( Dyanmo)
3) Seattle ( sounders)
4) colorado ( rapids)
5) chicago (FIRE)
6 Columbus ( Crew)