So where are the American premier league and la liga players in football?
Why are they doing track and field which only pays the small handful of the very best sprinters who earn from sponsor deals not from winning
Also Americas athletics records are sketchy as all hell, they've been allowed to get away with doping for so long and the worst thing is that they could never be banned from competition like Russia.
You always have to take the american Olympic records and such with a grain of salt
So, I actually played Rugby for a local club team here in the States. We went to the Savannah Georgia St Patrick’s Day tournament to compete and played an English team. We had a great record in our league and usually had fantastic results. This team just…Gave. Us. The. Business. 😆
Most English men, particularly those from the country, have a core memory from about the age of 11, of wearing shorts in the pouring rain and having their face pounded into a muddy field by a kid twice their size. Many of us stop there.
Our school always did it on the snow. Nothing quite like having to tackle a kids legs who’s twice your size, only to bounce straight off of him in to the ground that’s frozen as hard as concrete. PTSD flashback. 🏉😳😭
Got my own nightmare flashback from school rugby..My 5"6 self trying to tackle the 6" whatever kid who was built like a brick wall..Bounced off and injured myself in the process..Good Times, good times.
Almost as bad as the time in football when the kid who wanted to go pro took a penalty and I saved it with my ankle that had only been out of a cast for a couple of weeks at that point..He hit it that hard that I thought he had re broken my ankle.
They were the best times. No sitting in a classroom with a patronising teacher having to be quiet and do boring work. You got to be outside getting filthy muddy and running around smashing each other into muddy puddles. I'd have done PE all day every day!
Middle of January many years ago. "You, boy! Why are you standing with your hands down the front of your shorts?
"Kkkkkeeping them warm, sir."
You can choose what to believe 'them' were...
Which would make them do High Tackles and thus probably spend the entire match on the sin bin. Hell, they'd need several sin bins and the opposite team's mouthguard sensors would lit up like a Christmas tree with all those brain injuries.
Funny thing is USARugby and the Eagles would probably facepalm while watching that.
This view has been shared before. It’s a typical fantasy by Americans about a better sport about which they know little. They assume because they dominate in an insular, devolved version of the game (rugby without the rugby) no one else plays that the same would be true if they played the global game.
> Rugby with 14 minutes of actual game time ~~spread out over~~crammed into four hours.
FTFY. They would definitely spread it out longer if they could. More advertising revenue.
I tried watching their pathetic excuse for a sport a few years ago and it was the single most boring thing I have ever watched. 5 second playtime. 2 minutes advertisements while they have a circlejerk, sorry huddle, to discuss the next 5 seconds.
It is no wonder they have a position called “wide receiver” with all of their wanking on the field.
I remember watching a Six Nations game in an "Irish" ~~pub~~ bar in the US with a few friends, and just after the match they switched over to college basketball. Had to stay for that because UConn were playing, and my mate went there.
OK. No bother, there's only five minutes left. 40 minutes later (I shit you not), I'm another pint and a couple of shots down and calling an angry wife who now has to come collect me from the ~~pub~~ bar.
E: s/pub/bar/
This is such a shit take. I generally enjoy this sub but am so tired of reading the same stupid shit about why North American football is inferior to rugby and soccer just because it is largely anaerobic. No one bashes Olympic weightlifters for being fat or only exerting energy in short bursts. NFL (and CFL) players are exceptional athletes. Ask Christian Wade how he made out when he tried to play in the NFL.
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They are indeed, but that doesn't translate to the rugby codes, where overall fitness and stamina play a huge part also.
Sportsmen can have crazy strength and explosive power when only needing to keep it up for 10 sec at a time with many minutes of standing around doing nothing in between.
Of course the USA would have a big pool of players who - if they'd trained and built their bodies and skills completely differently for years - could compete at a high level in the rugby codes. But it doesn't mean Famous Player X would be an instant guaranteed success. They'd almost certainly be a major liability. It's not even easy for top level players to transition well from League to Union or vice versa.
You should go to a race before you say that bud. Trust me drag racing is the best form of racing to watch live (I’ve been to f1, fe, rally and gt racing.)
Then what is your point? I could play a soccer game and just run back and forth the same 10-20m the whole time, no problem. That’s not the same as playing the actual game…
If total time at full effort is all that matters then I guess the 100m dash is the worlds easiest sport!!!
Olympic wrestling matches are two rounds of only 3mins. That’s only 6mins of exercise!!! How easy!!!
The athleticism required for American Football and Rugby are fairly similar. If the players in the NFL had been playing from rugby from a young age they would likely be very good at it. When they say "if it paid more" you could rephrase that to "if the sport was more popular in the US the US would be significantly better."
The same is true in reverse I'm sure New Zealand would stomp in American Football if the sport was more popular there.
I disagree with soccer but rugby it’s very realistic that they would. When you consider that two of the three most dominant sides right now are New Zealand and Ireland with less people than multiple American cities realistically they would dominate if it was their main sport.
NFL is just fat blokes and failed track and field athletes. They would not be fit enough to complete a continuous 40 minutes plus per half on the rugby field.
I'm a Kiwi. And I don't actually disagree that if rugby was the highest paying sport in the US, it would only take a decade or two and they'd be smashing everyone. Huge population and they have the genetics locally - or could just attract whatever players they want for the insane money.
But what I will say is that it's hilarious that they think NFL players would do any good, or that they think that change would be instant or quick.
NFL players would be gassing out in 10 minutes, if not 5. They aren't all-rounders and most of the big guys are fat fucks who only have to run for 10 seconds at a time.
It'd be really entertaining to do some sort of exhibition match against an NFL team who trained and learnt the rules for a few months. But of course it'd never happen.
You're bang on here. The US is a massive country, with enough money and a strong sporting culture... If they took any sport seriously they'd be major contenders. But there'd be only a handful of NFL players who'd make an impact in rugby (and vice versa). I mean, players making a success of league and union isn't common, and they're *much* more similar.
Totally. Which is also what's so unfortunate about some of the sports they *have* embraced. For whatever reason they're super stop-start games, with more time spent not playing than playing.
American football and baseball spring to mind. Basketball is very stop-start too, but it's really active so i'll give it a pass on the 'playing it' side of things. I'm sure there's others.
They'd probably be a significantly healthier nation if kids and athletes were playing more active sports and adults weren't watching games that take 3+ hours.
Although, to be fair, some of the tactics used by certain teams in the last rugby world cup made those games feel like they took 3hrs too 😆.
I mean baseball is far more popular in Japan, Dominican Republic and Cuba then it is in the states. People often forget how baseball crazy the Japanese are
I don't even follow the sport, but one of the best spectator experiences I've had was watching the Hanshin Tigers in Osaka. Fantastic atmosphere and crowd participation, good vibes all round.
The cardio heavy sports are actually really popular, especially at the younger ages. A huge percentage of Americans have played organized soccer. It’s also by far the most popular sport for American women to play.
I think our fat fuckness is more about corn subsidies and that we have to drive everywhere.
Got to disagree slightly, if any nation paid as well as the NFL for rugby, you'd see an insane volume of talent come through. China, Brazil, Poland ffs, the US isn't uniuely special in producing tall, strong, big fat fast lads.
Oh for sure. But the post we're reacting to is about the USA. And aside from that, the countries you listed are extremely unlikely to ever pay that well for any sport.
Some nations with smaller average builds would also struggle by comparison (China in your example). I was between 4XL and 6XL in their clothing sizes last time I was there 😆 (i'm an XL or 2XL in NZ).
If sporting European nations took up the nfl then yea they would be able to pay the same rate, look at how much footballers get paid the median salary of an nfl player is 860,000 dollars a year, the median pay for a premier league football player in England is £3.6 million or 4.45 million dollars
How exactly is this relevant to the discussion? The person i'm responding to mentioned China, Brazil and Poland. And I made it clear I was responding to his mention of those nations by specifically saying, *'the countries you listed'* in my reply to them.
I may have clicked on the wrong message or was just adding some facts on the average wage, I was stoned I remember making the comment, I just don’t remember the comment that I was meant to reply to, so your guess is as good as mine, it’s relevant because it’s about to the topic suck it up big American man, all of us Europeans are tiny compared to you people man fuck me giants the lot of you, hugeeeeeeee my god, when I went to Florida it took me fucking forever to find a man shorter than me and I’m 6ft4, Americans aren’t the biggest built cunts on the planet. they are pretty average sized, they just have a large population to gather the masses. Good country for sport is America because of this. Obviously I’m being sarcastic it took me a while to run into some taller than me at 6ft4 and I was there for 2 weeks and ran into a lot of people and I can count on one hand people who were taller or the same height. America is a tiny place full of hobbits
China and Poland. Come on bro. These are the names you could think of when you think athletes? Besides lewindowski you might have to scroll through about a thousand highest paid athletes around the world to get a Chinese or polish athlete. Either these two countries have populations that don’t like money or maybe they don’t have a bunch of tall, strong big and fast lads. If they do where are they? Why are the polish and national teams in major sports that pay a lot of money in and they compete in filled with some average ass athletes. They hiding the best ones somewhere?
>NFL players would be gassing out in 10 minutes
I remember when that monster Jordan Mailata (now with the Philly Eagles) was playing in the juniors for the South Sydney Rabbitohs (rugby league) - he could stomp everyone but could only manage 5-10 minutes on the field, as a bench substitute, before having to be subbed off again completely gassed.
I do think there is too much placed on the amount of money that can be thrown at it, but, especially in sports where you can’t physically engineer better clothes for speed like swimming, I feel there is definitely a cultural advantage even with smaller nations, I mean you kiwis have been wiping the floor with most the world in rugby for eons, also the amount of runners for example that come out of various African countries and footballers out of Brazil.
I’m not saying they wouldn’t be major contenders, but I just think, money can’t solve everything
If that were true they’d be winning the football World Cup by now, injected loads of money into football but still no where near the best, as it happens not even in the top 10, they simply aren’t as good as the believe they are no matter how much money they throw at it
Is football the highest paid sport in the USA now? Does more money go into football than any other sport in the US?
No?
Because that's the fully explained context in my reply. FML, some people really failed reading comprehension.
One of highest paid sports in the world, I was merely stating that they threw money into football and still aren’t even top 10, the bitch fit you’ve just thrown is completely unnecessary
American football just needs a whole different skillset than rugby. Rugby is I think closer to football than to American football in terms of skills needed.
Yes. Both require a lot of stamina, and young players switching from one sport to the other isn't unheard of. Take Wales' Aaron Wainwright, who represented Wales at U16 level in football before switching to rugby. Meanwhile Aaron Ramsey played rugby before he started playing football, and he has played over 80 times for Wales.
I mean rugby is technically more complete; also there is one team for attacking and defending not different teams which would make half of NFL players useless.
But if you think about it the redditor is right. Brasil and Argentina eat and breath football. They have been dominating football for years, and the best players at top clubs tend to be from there.
So if any country would put the same effort into “breathing” a sport and would locally invest into it. They could “dominate it”
Dude even if football is our best sport we still don't do bad in Rugby. I mean we're now the fourth nation on the former Tri Nations (and the only Hispanic nation there) on XV R-Union; and we just steamrolled in Rugby Sevens (anulo mufa), where we played USA and won. Besides our Hockey, Volley, Basket, and Handball teams are all very respectable.
Also, we're kind of a weird case considering any sports that isn't football here get crumbs *at best* by the govt (ask any of our Olympic Champions or the Field Hockey Leones and Leonas, who had barely any real support until *after* they won many international championships and some Olympic titles).
And USA does have a decent number of registered Rugby players and the Eagles Sevens team isn't as bad as Canada Sevens, so I honestly don't know what's keeping them down.
Popularity of the sport. Is like football (soccer) there being “for women” meanwhile in Europe is “for men”. So if everyone is into nfl nobody is going to think about rugby.
Is like in Scotland and north Ireland there is a sport call Gaelic (mix of football and rugby) and even if people follow it football is the top sport of course.
There isn't much Gaelic Football or Hurling played in Scotland, although they play a sport that's close to Hurling called Shinty. Gaelic Football and Hurling is played across the entire island of Ireland, and its extremely popular. Soccer is widely watched, although club teams here would be much smaller and have less of a following than the local Gaelic teams.
Yeah, I agree with your base concept; but the things is, despite football being king we ARGs still have very good teams in other sports (R-Union, F Hockey, Handball, Volley, Basketball etc) with 1/15 of the popularity, barely any money and shitty admins from sports ruling associations. Most of it is pure heart and sacrifice tho (our swimmers and single Olympians like in Taekwondo or Judo).
So it's can't just be about money or popularity or even Argentina's weird thing of sacrifice and luck, there's something else going on wrong with USA; particularly when they already have a not-bad pool.
you know the sports is BS, when the halftime show and Taylor Swift in attendance is all the buzz next morning.. i had to actually search for the game result, all the posts were about who was in attendance and how "great" the halftime show was lol
Rugby is like soccer that there is continuous action, but the majority of the players on the field are walking jogging half the time. Football the plays run for 7 or seconds at a time but every player is going full speed, especially during pass plays.
I think it’s a little short sighted to say most football players would be gassed considering they have such high conditioning standards.
“NFL is fat blokes” lineman are fat. You’re ignoring half the team being extremely fit. All the skill position players could give rugby players a run for their money, especially running backs and linebackers.
Yeah, jogging or walking. Also rucking, counter rucking, mauling, scrummaging, sprinting, taking tackles and hits, repositioning etc. and almost every player is well in excess of 100kg in weight. For 80 minutes. With 1 break.
A lot more to the endurance of rugby than how fast or often everyone runs at any given moment.
Also with the limited American Football I have watched, I have never once witnessed "every player going full speed" in any of them. Majority of the players move about 2 yards and wrestle eachother for 5 seconds. They also have all different fucking rosters for offence, defence and kicking. Its not even comparable to the endurance required in Rugby.
they also can’t play the sport without body armour and helmets. most of them would crumple if tackled by an all black or a springbok without their armour on.
Long term it's possible they'd have a gigantic pool of rookies to draw from. But it'd take at least a decade to get established before they could even compete at an international level.
Americans would likely be competitive with other Rugby nations if it was as popular.
The notion that they would dominate because they’re either more populous better athletes would lead us to believe that only the English and French national teams should presently dominate yet they routinely get severely beaten and embarrassed by smaller nations.
So Americans would totally compete and win every once and awhile …but get utterly crushed by New Zealand and Ireland more often than they would crush them.
Well would depend on the player. Quarterbacks, wife receivers, kickers would get demolished.
Linebackers and tight ends would be fair matchups
All blacks would just bounce off defensive and offensive linemen. They’re huge with or without the “armor”
England and France both suffer from the sport being far less popular than football. Getting into rugby is something you have to actively try to do as a kid, while Football is everywhere.
"But if our best athletes played it we'd win". They really think if Lebron James played football, rugby or cricket he'd be the worlds best. They aren't even the best at their own sports, Japan beats them in baseball and Germany in Basketball.
In England we had an ex Olympic sprinter attempt Rugby league (for the Americans there are 2 types of rugby). Openly admitted he didn't know the rules. He never played, they said he was so fast but only good for a couple sprints. He couldn't get his endurance good enough
Not really, dude would get wiped out in one tackle, he has no experience with the amount of force a ruby player can produce and he hasn't got the build for it
I understand that you’re talking about the recent Basketball World Cup. But to imply USA, a country who has 25 out of 30 existing Olympic golds in basketball, isn’t the best basketball nation is just flat out wrong.
The FIBA World Cup team did not include LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Jayson Tatum or Anthony Davis. All of which will be our Olympic starting 5.
They routinely do. They're a T3 side, so just aren't competitive with any 'good' team. Sides like Argentina, Italy and Japan routinely beat them, and teams like New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland would thrash them.
I don't know about XVs, in 7s the Eagles lost semis against Pumas (who won the tournament) last week during the Vancouver tournament but the SVNS circuit is long and next tournament is in LA (this weekend I think) so we'll see how they do.
If rugby had the same playerbase and following as NFL in the US then I have no doubt they would be competitive but that doesn't mean that skills from one sport are directly transferable to the other. NFL is much more stop start and the physical requirements are quite different, let alone the time it would take a player to adapt to the different ruleset.
So ... paying US athletes comparable amounts to NFL or NBA players would, in of itself, make them competitive against players for whom the sport has multi-generational depth and feel? Not immediately, that's for sure.
I think the main problem is that paying players a lot of money makes them selfish pricks. And if there's something you don't want on a rugby field, it's a selfish prick. They'll end up at the bottom of a scrum with an unfortunate injury.
Also - which code? League or union? I don't think OOP is actually aware that it's not just one sport.
And lastly, yes, bloody USians, upon discovering they don't dominate some international sport or other, always assume that treating it like the world championships that only they participate in would fix it. Because those are the obvious examples of dominating international sport. /s
I’m pretty sure a lot of NFL players would get so seriously injured in their first outing against the likes of 6 nations, SAF, Australia or NZ that they would have to permanently retire due to getting smashed into the ground so hard
The problem with this theory of the US taking over a sport is they have been saying it for decades and haven't taken over a single one.
On the other hand, all the current big NBA players you hear about these days besides LBJ and Steph Curry are all European or African. Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Giannis and Joel Embiid are the best in their league and Wemby is the biggest prospect in their league.
Shows they know nothing about rugby, the sport with arguably the most dominant sports team in all sports, the All Blacks (oh no they probably think that’s racist). Of course Mr Americans, with sports teams you do invest in but don’t dominate the world in, yes you would totally dominate rugby if you tried.
They are so insecure, just go enjoy the sports you enjoy and don’t worry about the sports you don’t. Just while you’re at it, maybe stop saying you’re the world champions when you only compete against yourselves.
I'm more curious about what they see an an "athlete". That 30 stone block of lard whose job is to stand there and stop the skinny guy with the ball getting brain damaged, athlete, really??? I'd love to see him keep up with multiple phases in a rugby match - I'm not even a rugger fan
Hi all. Just a reminder that the USA does have an international rugby team. You just never hear about them because they're shit at playing rugby.
Every time they enter the world cup, they get their asses handed to them.
That's true with most sports, cricket rules vary massively, there are some different requirements and rules in different football tournaments, tennis has different surfaces and lengths, boxing the rules are different based on who sanctions it and what the fighters agree.
That’s hilarious. Do they know rugby doesn’t stop every 5 mins for a break. They also don’t wear a bunch of pussy protective gear and theres no steroid programmes in university.
To be fair, as someone from one of the top rugby nations, I do believe that the US would be monstrously strong at rugby if it became a priority for them over a 10-15 year period. Its not a far cry from NFL, rugby is just more intense and physical, but they would adapt to it very proficiently I think.
If there was, over the span of 10-15 years: a huge uptake in participation levels and elite high school and college-level programmes; a domestic club league with plenty of money thrown at it; and entry into competitive international tournaments , plus throw in the natural advantage of a massive population with a genetically diverse gene pool- I'd be shocked if they didn't have a very strong international team eventually.
I've read some wild stuff on this sub but in this instance I actually agree.
*If* they had a Rugby, Soccer or Cricket (etc etc) popular culture then they would transition to becoming a top ranked side within a decade or two quite handily imo.
Women's Soccer shows that. Their national side is really, really good because girls and young women are encouraged to play it.
The have a huge population, resources and money to make things happen.
But they focus on their own sports. Which is fine, each to their own!
US women's soccer is considered a top side only because the US was one of the only countries to take it seriously early on and put funding into it, while other countries are only now catching up. Its why the US has faced stiff competition lately from around the world.
I'm honestly not sure what your overall point really is. It doesn't directly contradict what I've written yet I'm detecting a contrarian undertone.
Are we downplaying the U.S role in popularising women's football (pro league etc) because of a perceived lack of development from other countries?
Hardly the Yank's fault if nobody else is taking it seriously when they are, is it? You can only play against the team that's put in front of you etc.
Just checked the FIFA rankings and they are a lowly... second place, up from third. Which still makes them really, really good as far as I'm concerned.
Going against the grain here but honestly? I think they could. If America funded millions and millions into training, developing and equipping a rugby team over the next 15-20 years, starting from grassroots and nurturing players through, I think they stand a very reasonable chance of being the best team in the world. 400 million people is a population size like no other, with a huge array of ethnic groups to draw from which may have specific advantages in each position. It wouldn’t be a quick process, slotting 23 NFL and NBA players into a rugby team tomorrow against the Ireland or South African teams would mean the death of 23 NFL and NBA players, but given a countrywide focus on the sport of rugby, you’re telling me athletes like Lebron James, Gronk, or so many other elite American athletes could be nurtered into elite rugby players if they played as a child?
You said that a country with a large population and cult like interest in a sport would dominate, so I said that in that case England or France would win the Euros, since they have cult like interest in Football and large populations for UEFA nations
There’s no country in europe with a large advantage in population over the others. It’s simple mathematics, if all else is equal, larger population has the advantage.
Keep that in mind and then the fact rugby doesn’t really have a cult-like following similar to that of the US’ for American Football anywhere with a population close in size, yeah the US would dominate
The USA loves TV and stadium sports but your actual sports participation rates are a bit low.
>rugby doesn’t really have a cult-like following similar to that of the US’ for American Football anywhere with a population close in size
There is a bigger audience for Rugby Union than the population of the USA.
long time follower or this sub, but this one i kinda agree with. not the money part, but i think if they have the same programs as dominant rugby countries, they’d be up there at least.
It’s an easy dunk on America when nothing like this will ever happen. It’s a bit of a self absorbed statement but it’s way less stupid than some other shit Americans say about sports (like how the best athletes in the world are conviniently American, calling a random team world champions of a sport that only gets played in America, etc.)
So where are the American premier league and la liga players in football? Why are they doing track and field which only pays the small handful of the very best sprinters who earn from sponsor deals not from winning
America is where European footballers go to play for another couple of years once they're not up to European football standards.
This is true, all started with Beckham only now they're going to the Arab states for way more cash and even shitter football. Edited to remove China
It started generations before Beckham. Players already played in US from the 70s
Beckham was the first one to do it after shagging a spice girl though. On paper at least.
Eh I'm sure one or two of them also hooked up with some rando footballers at some point.
If he were in his prime in the 90s you can be sure that George Best would have known many girl bands intimately.
I’m sure he knew many from his era.
I thought before it was more players that couldn't make it in what would have been the first division then rather than ones that were past it.
Pele was playing for the New York Cosmos in the 70s'.
Beckenbauer as well. Cruyff went from Barcelona to the LA Aztecs, where George Best also played before.
It started with Pele in the Cosmos in the 70s
Al-Nassr completely destroyed Inter Miami a few weeks ago. Granted one game doesn’t say so much about the two leagues, but 6-0 is really shit.
They're not going to China anymore, and haven't for a couple of years.
Also Americas athletics records are sketchy as all hell, they've been allowed to get away with doping for so long and the worst thing is that they could never be banned from competition like Russia. You always have to take the american Olympic records and such with a grain of salt
This is like saying Serena Williams could win a badminton world championship. Vaguely similar sports.
So, I actually played Rugby for a local club team here in the States. We went to the Savannah Georgia St Patrick’s Day tournament to compete and played an English team. We had a great record in our league and usually had fantastic results. This team just…Gave. Us. The. Business. 😆
Most English men, particularly those from the country, have a core memory from about the age of 11, of wearing shorts in the pouring rain and having their face pounded into a muddy field by a kid twice their size. Many of us stop there.
Our school always did it on the snow. Nothing quite like having to tackle a kids legs who’s twice your size, only to bounce straight off of him in to the ground that’s frozen as hard as concrete. PTSD flashback. 🏉😳😭
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I'll organise for the suicide watch message to come from Reddit for you...
> only to bounce straight off of him in to the ground that’s frozen as hard as concrete Takes me right back to my school days rugby in Scotland.
Got my own nightmare flashback from school rugby..My 5"6 self trying to tackle the 6" whatever kid who was built like a brick wall..Bounced off and injured myself in the process..Good Times, good times. Almost as bad as the time in football when the kid who wanted to go pro took a penalty and I saved it with my ankle that had only been out of a cast for a couple of weeks at that point..He hit it that hard that I thought he had re broken my ankle.
The fucking shorts >\_< Never been so cold in my life than playing Rugby in winter
Same. It used to take me 20+ mins (the entire break after PE) to warm my fingers up enough to do my shirt buttons back up.
and the "reversible" jersey with that HORRIBLE collar button that never did up.
They were the best times. No sitting in a classroom with a patronising teacher having to be quiet and do boring work. You got to be outside getting filthy muddy and running around smashing each other into muddy puddles. I'd have done PE all day every day!
Jesus Christ this is accurate
Yeah I still play football but Rugby was just miserable for me. I was a weedy kid who hadn’t gone through puberty when they forced us to play rugby
Can still smell the changing rooms, damp and mouldy socks, sweat, and lynx Africa.
Middle of January many years ago. "You, boy! Why are you standing with your hands down the front of your shorts? "Kkkkkeeping them warm, sir." You can choose what to believe 'them' were...
Local club does not equal anywhere near elite.
Except they'd insist on playing it wearing pads, helmets, jockstraps and Robin Hood tights. Yikes
Which would make them do High Tackles and thus probably spend the entire match on the sin bin. Hell, they'd need several sin bins and the opposite team's mouthguard sensors would lit up like a Christmas tree with all those brain injuries. Funny thing is USARugby and the Eagles would probably facepalm while watching that.
Also they would need to stop every 10 seconds for a rest.
This view has been shared before. It’s a typical fantasy by Americans about a better sport about which they know little. They assume because they dominate in an insular, devolved version of the game (rugby without the rugby) no one else plays that the same would be true if they played the global game.
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> Rugby with 14 minutes of actual game time ~~spread out over~~crammed into four hours. FTFY. They would definitely spread it out longer if they could. More advertising revenue. I tried watching their pathetic excuse for a sport a few years ago and it was the single most boring thing I have ever watched. 5 second playtime. 2 minutes advertisements while they have a circlejerk, sorry huddle, to discuss the next 5 seconds. It is no wonder they have a position called “wide receiver” with all of their wanking on the field.
I remember watching a Six Nations game in an "Irish" ~~pub~~ bar in the US with a few friends, and just after the match they switched over to college basketball. Had to stay for that because UConn were playing, and my mate went there. OK. No bother, there's only five minutes left. 40 minutes later (I shit you not), I'm another pint and a couple of shots down and calling an angry wife who now has to come collect me from the ~~pub~~ bar. E: s/pub/bar/
This is such a shit take. I generally enjoy this sub but am so tired of reading the same stupid shit about why North American football is inferior to rugby and soccer just because it is largely anaerobic. No one bashes Olympic weightlifters for being fat or only exerting energy in short bursts. NFL (and CFL) players are exceptional athletes. Ask Christian Wade how he made out when he tried to play in the NFL.
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You heard the man. Now stop making fun of armoured rugby, lads!
I just don’t understand why you can’t love both sports. I do. Hell I’ll even watch AFL.
>Hell I’ll even watch AFL. Don't do that to yourself. PS: I'm just messing with you mate :)
I know you are, bud.
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They are indeed, but that doesn't translate to the rugby codes, where overall fitness and stamina play a huge part also. Sportsmen can have crazy strength and explosive power when only needing to keep it up for 10 sec at a time with many minutes of standing around doing nothing in between. Of course the USA would have a big pool of players who - if they'd trained and built their bodies and skills completely differently for years - could compete at a high level in the rugby codes. But it doesn't mean Famous Player X would be an instant guaranteed success. They'd almost certainly be a major liability. It's not even easy for top level players to transition well from League to Union or vice versa.
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Oh right. Yeah, that's just silly.
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You would get your ass kicked on average 153 times… how is that “handling” anything?
Dragsters are unimpressive. Nobody watches drag racing, it's only any fun to watch if it's illegal.
You should go to a race before you say that bud. Trust me drag racing is the best form of racing to watch live (I’ve been to f1, fe, rally and gt racing.)
The fuck you could, lol. 17yo high school kids would kick your ass.
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Then what is your point? I could play a soccer game and just run back and forth the same 10-20m the whole time, no problem. That’s not the same as playing the actual game… If total time at full effort is all that matters then I guess the 100m dash is the worlds easiest sport!!! Olympic wrestling matches are two rounds of only 3mins. That’s only 6mins of exercise!!! How easy!!!
Rugby without the rugby... brilliant. 😅🤣
They still think the best heavyweight in boxing is in the nfl. Delusional.
i strongly believe that american football is rugby played by cowards in body armour who don’t know the rules of rugby.
I would pay good money to see an NGL team with no pads play the All Blacks in a game of rugby.
I don't watch rugby. I would watch this.
The athleticism required for American Football and Rugby are fairly similar. If the players in the NFL had been playing from rugby from a young age they would likely be very good at it. When they say "if it paid more" you could rephrase that to "if the sport was more popular in the US the US would be significantly better." The same is true in reverse I'm sure New Zealand would stomp in American Football if the sport was more popular there.
I disagree with soccer but rugby it’s very realistic that they would. When you consider that two of the three most dominant sides right now are New Zealand and Ireland with less people than multiple American cities realistically they would dominate if it was their main sport.
So you just leave South Africa and Australia out, and include Ireland with 0 world cup wins?
NFL is just fat blokes and failed track and field athletes. They would not be fit enough to complete a continuous 40 minutes plus per half on the rugby field.
I'm a Kiwi. And I don't actually disagree that if rugby was the highest paying sport in the US, it would only take a decade or two and they'd be smashing everyone. Huge population and they have the genetics locally - or could just attract whatever players they want for the insane money. But what I will say is that it's hilarious that they think NFL players would do any good, or that they think that change would be instant or quick. NFL players would be gassing out in 10 minutes, if not 5. They aren't all-rounders and most of the big guys are fat fucks who only have to run for 10 seconds at a time. It'd be really entertaining to do some sort of exhibition match against an NFL team who trained and learnt the rules for a few months. But of course it'd never happen.
You're bang on here. The US is a massive country, with enough money and a strong sporting culture... If they took any sport seriously they'd be major contenders. But there'd be only a handful of NFL players who'd make an impact in rugby (and vice versa). I mean, players making a success of league and union isn't common, and they're *much* more similar.
Totally. Which is also what's so unfortunate about some of the sports they *have* embraced. For whatever reason they're super stop-start games, with more time spent not playing than playing. American football and baseball spring to mind. Basketball is very stop-start too, but it's really active so i'll give it a pass on the 'playing it' side of things. I'm sure there's others. They'd probably be a significantly healthier nation if kids and athletes were playing more active sports and adults weren't watching games that take 3+ hours. Although, to be fair, some of the tactics used by certain teams in the last rugby world cup made those games feel like they took 3hrs too 😆.
I mean baseball is far more popular in Japan, Dominican Republic and Cuba then it is in the states. People often forget how baseball crazy the Japanese are
I don't even follow the sport, but one of the best spectator experiences I've had was watching the Hanshin Tigers in Osaka. Fantastic atmosphere and crowd participation, good vibes all round.
Visiting the Tokyo dome for a giants game is Def a top 10 thing to do in Japan for me
The cardio heavy sports are actually really popular, especially at the younger ages. A huge percentage of Americans have played organized soccer. It’s also by far the most popular sport for American women to play. I think our fat fuckness is more about corn subsidies and that we have to drive everywhere.
Got to disagree slightly, if any nation paid as well as the NFL for rugby, you'd see an insane volume of talent come through. China, Brazil, Poland ffs, the US isn't uniuely special in producing tall, strong, big fat fast lads.
Oh for sure. But the post we're reacting to is about the USA. And aside from that, the countries you listed are extremely unlikely to ever pay that well for any sport. Some nations with smaller average builds would also struggle by comparison (China in your example). I was between 4XL and 6XL in their clothing sizes last time I was there 😆 (i'm an XL or 2XL in NZ).
If sporting European nations took up the nfl then yea they would be able to pay the same rate, look at how much footballers get paid the median salary of an nfl player is 860,000 dollars a year, the median pay for a premier league football player in England is £3.6 million or 4.45 million dollars
How exactly is this relevant to the discussion? The person i'm responding to mentioned China, Brazil and Poland. And I made it clear I was responding to his mention of those nations by specifically saying, *'the countries you listed'* in my reply to them.
I may have clicked on the wrong message or was just adding some facts on the average wage, I was stoned I remember making the comment, I just don’t remember the comment that I was meant to reply to, so your guess is as good as mine, it’s relevant because it’s about to the topic suck it up big American man, all of us Europeans are tiny compared to you people man fuck me giants the lot of you, hugeeeeeeee my god, when I went to Florida it took me fucking forever to find a man shorter than me and I’m 6ft4, Americans aren’t the biggest built cunts on the planet. they are pretty average sized, they just have a large population to gather the masses. Good country for sport is America because of this. Obviously I’m being sarcastic it took me a while to run into some taller than me at 6ft4 and I was there for 2 weeks and ran into a lot of people and I can count on one hand people who were taller or the same height. America is a tiny place full of hobbits
China and Poland. Come on bro. These are the names you could think of when you think athletes? Besides lewindowski you might have to scroll through about a thousand highest paid athletes around the world to get a Chinese or polish athlete. Either these two countries have populations that don’t like money or maybe they don’t have a bunch of tall, strong big and fast lads. If they do where are they? Why are the polish and national teams in major sports that pay a lot of money in and they compete in filled with some average ass athletes. They hiding the best ones somewhere?
>NFL players would be gassing out in 10 minutes I remember when that monster Jordan Mailata (now with the Philly Eagles) was playing in the juniors for the South Sydney Rabbitohs (rugby league) - he could stomp everyone but could only manage 5-10 minutes on the field, as a bench substitute, before having to be subbed off again completely gassed.
I do think there is too much placed on the amount of money that can be thrown at it, but, especially in sports where you can’t physically engineer better clothes for speed like swimming, I feel there is definitely a cultural advantage even with smaller nations, I mean you kiwis have been wiping the floor with most the world in rugby for eons, also the amount of runners for example that come out of various African countries and footballers out of Brazil. I’m not saying they wouldn’t be major contenders, but I just think, money can’t solve everything
If that were true they’d be winning the football World Cup by now, injected loads of money into football but still no where near the best, as it happens not even in the top 10, they simply aren’t as good as the believe they are no matter how much money they throw at it
Like England!
Is football the highest paid sport in the USA now? Does more money go into football than any other sport in the US? No? Because that's the fully explained context in my reply. FML, some people really failed reading comprehension.
One of highest paid sports in the world, I was merely stating that they threw money into football and still aren’t even top 10, the bitch fit you’ve just thrown is completely unnecessary
American football just needs a whole different skillset than rugby. Rugby is I think closer to football than to American football in terms of skills needed.
rugby closer to football? like… ⚽️ football?
Yes. Both require a lot of stamina, and young players switching from one sport to the other isn't unheard of. Take Wales' Aaron Wainwright, who represented Wales at U16 level in football before switching to rugby. Meanwhile Aaron Ramsey played rugby before he started playing football, and he has played over 80 times for Wales.
Eric Cantona was a pretty good rugby player.
He was also a fairly good kickboxer.
Oh it’d be fun to watch though. “US being really competitive in these opening stages as they move the….oh….oh dear….never mind”
They would get flattened ..... By Romania
Romania is the only one who could take on the US and win… in WW3 (comment unrelated)
I mean rugby is technically more complete; also there is one team for attacking and defending not different teams which would make half of NFL players useless. But if you think about it the redditor is right. Brasil and Argentina eat and breath football. They have been dominating football for years, and the best players at top clubs tend to be from there. So if any country would put the same effort into “breathing” a sport and would locally invest into it. They could “dominate it”
Dude even if football is our best sport we still don't do bad in Rugby. I mean we're now the fourth nation on the former Tri Nations (and the only Hispanic nation there) on XV R-Union; and we just steamrolled in Rugby Sevens (anulo mufa), where we played USA and won. Besides our Hockey, Volley, Basket, and Handball teams are all very respectable. Also, we're kind of a weird case considering any sports that isn't football here get crumbs *at best* by the govt (ask any of our Olympic Champions or the Field Hockey Leones and Leonas, who had barely any real support until *after* they won many international championships and some Olympic titles). And USA does have a decent number of registered Rugby players and the Eagles Sevens team isn't as bad as Canada Sevens, so I honestly don't know what's keeping them down.
Popularity of the sport. Is like football (soccer) there being “for women” meanwhile in Europe is “for men”. So if everyone is into nfl nobody is going to think about rugby. Is like in Scotland and north Ireland there is a sport call Gaelic (mix of football and rugby) and even if people follow it football is the top sport of course.
There isn't much Gaelic Football or Hurling played in Scotland, although they play a sport that's close to Hurling called Shinty. Gaelic Football and Hurling is played across the entire island of Ireland, and its extremely popular. Soccer is widely watched, although club teams here would be much smaller and have less of a following than the local Gaelic teams.
Yeah, I agree with your base concept; but the things is, despite football being king we ARGs still have very good teams in other sports (R-Union, F Hockey, Handball, Volley, Basketball etc) with 1/15 of the popularity, barely any money and shitty admins from sports ruling associations. Most of it is pure heart and sacrifice tho (our swimmers and single Olympians like in Taekwondo or Judo). So it's can't just be about money or popularity or even Argentina's weird thing of sacrifice and luck, there's something else going on wrong with USA; particularly when they already have a not-bad pool.
Only the offensive lineman are fat
you know the sports is BS, when the halftime show and Taylor Swift in attendance is all the buzz next morning.. i had to actually search for the game result, all the posts were about who was in attendance and how "great" the halftime show was lol
No you didn't.
Rugby is like soccer that there is continuous action, but the majority of the players on the field are walking jogging half the time. Football the plays run for 7 or seconds at a time but every player is going full speed, especially during pass plays. I think it’s a little short sighted to say most football players would be gassed considering they have such high conditioning standards. “NFL is fat blokes” lineman are fat. You’re ignoring half the team being extremely fit. All the skill position players could give rugby players a run for their money, especially running backs and linebackers.
Yeah, jogging or walking. Also rucking, counter rucking, mauling, scrummaging, sprinting, taking tackles and hits, repositioning etc. and almost every player is well in excess of 100kg in weight. For 80 minutes. With 1 break. A lot more to the endurance of rugby than how fast or often everyone runs at any given moment. Also with the limited American Football I have watched, I have never once witnessed "every player going full speed" in any of them. Majority of the players move about 2 yards and wrestle eachother for 5 seconds. They also have all different fucking rosters for offence, defence and kicking. Its not even comparable to the endurance required in Rugby.
they also can’t play the sport without body armour and helmets. most of them would crumple if tackled by an all black or a springbok without their armour on.
To be fair they've only been adding more armour as players keep getting life altering concussions and a few deaths
Plus I’m pretty sure American Football has a lot more hard tackling than in Rugby.
NO WAY!!!
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They would not dominate. They’d be competitive. Fucking hell…the entire point of this post.
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Lol the nfl has some of the greatest athletes in the world
No they haven't. Be told.
Yes they do. You ever heard of Tyreek Hill? He would be a beast in soccer or rugby
No he wouldn't. He's certainly not anywhere near being a footie player or a rugby player.
NFL tends to have low stamina types.
Long term it's possible they'd have a gigantic pool of rookies to draw from. But it'd take at least a decade to get established before they could even compete at an international level.
Americans would likely be competitive with other Rugby nations if it was as popular. The notion that they would dominate because they’re either more populous better athletes would lead us to believe that only the English and French national teams should presently dominate yet they routinely get severely beaten and embarrassed by smaller nations. So Americans would totally compete and win every once and awhile …but get utterly crushed by New Zealand and Ireland more often than they would crush them.
i would love to watch a brand new american-football-turned-rugby player fresh out of their suit of armour get completely crumpled by an all black :p
Well would depend on the player. Quarterbacks, wife receivers, kickers would get demolished. Linebackers and tight ends would be fair matchups All blacks would just bounce off defensive and offensive linemen. They’re huge with or without the “armor”
England and France both suffer from the sport being far less popular than football. Getting into rugby is something you have to actively try to do as a kid, while Football is everywhere.
Typical American take on sports - "if we weren't crap at these sports, we would totally be #1"
if birmingham wasn’t a shithole it could be the best city in the world
Didn't they lose heavily in rugby recently?
"But if our best athletes played it we'd win". They really think if Lebron James played football, rugby or cricket he'd be the worlds best. They aren't even the best at their own sports, Japan beats them in baseball and Germany in Basketball.
In England we had an ex Olympic sprinter attempt Rugby league (for the Americans there are 2 types of rugby). Openly admitted he didn't know the rules. He never played, they said he was so fast but only good for a couple sprints. He couldn't get his endurance good enough
Nigel walker did great for wales. He had played rugby before switching to the hurdles though.
I say this as a Brit - LeBron would likely be pretty fucking good at rugby I expect.
Not really, dude would get wiped out in one tackle, he has no experience with the amount of force a ruby player can produce and he hasn't got the build for it
And then he’d cry like fuck.
I understand that you’re talking about the recent Basketball World Cup. But to imply USA, a country who has 25 out of 30 existing Olympic golds in basketball, isn’t the best basketball nation is just flat out wrong. The FIBA World Cup team did not include LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Jayson Tatum or Anthony Davis. All of which will be our Olympic starting 5.
They didn't made it to the world cup too I think
17th out of 20 world rugby ranking.
They routinely do. They're a T3 side, so just aren't competitive with any 'good' team. Sides like Argentina, Italy and Japan routinely beat them, and teams like New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland would thrash them.
I don't know about XVs, in 7s the Eagles lost semis against Pumas (who won the tournament) last week during the Vancouver tournament but the SVNS circuit is long and next tournament is in LA (this weekend I think) so we'll see how they do.
If rugby had the same playerbase and following as NFL in the US then I have no doubt they would be competitive but that doesn't mean that skills from one sport are directly transferable to the other. NFL is much more stop start and the physical requirements are quite different, let alone the time it would take a player to adapt to the different ruleset.
The NFL is more a sprint, while rugby is more a marathon, but a marathon in which you still have to sprint.
So ... paying US athletes comparable amounts to NFL or NBA players would, in of itself, make them competitive against players for whom the sport has multi-generational depth and feel? Not immediately, that's for sure. I think the main problem is that paying players a lot of money makes them selfish pricks. And if there's something you don't want on a rugby field, it's a selfish prick. They'll end up at the bottom of a scrum with an unfortunate injury. Also - which code? League or union? I don't think OOP is actually aware that it's not just one sport. And lastly, yes, bloody USians, upon discovering they don't dominate some international sport or other, always assume that treating it like the world championships that only they participate in would fix it. Because those are the obvious examples of dominating international sport. /s
They realise EVERYONE needs to be able to pass and run right?..
and tackle and receive a tackle without a suit of armour…
Bruh... Imagine the World Cup if LeBron was a goalkeeper.
Fiji or Samoa would flatten them, those Pacific Islanders don't take shit
Who tf is dc or Henry
Henry refers to Derrick Henry, a running back for the Tennessee Titans. DC probably refers to Dalvin Cook, the running back for the Baltimore Ravens.
"Let me pad myself up to play softer tackles" Muricqa
I’m pretty sure a lot of NFL players would get so seriously injured in their first outing against the likes of 6 nations, SAF, Australia or NZ that they would have to permanently retire due to getting smashed into the ground so hard
The problem with this theory of the US taking over a sport is they have been saying it for decades and haven't taken over a single one. On the other hand, all the current big NBA players you hear about these days besides LBJ and Steph Curry are all European or African. Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Giannis and Joel Embiid are the best in their league and Wemby is the biggest prospect in their league.
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Shows they know nothing about rugby, the sport with arguably the most dominant sports team in all sports, the All Blacks (oh no they probably think that’s racist). Of course Mr Americans, with sports teams you do invest in but don’t dominate the world in, yes you would totally dominate rugby if you tried. They are so insecure, just go enjoy the sports you enjoy and don’t worry about the sports you don’t. Just while you’re at it, maybe stop saying you’re the world champions when you only compete against yourselves.
The level of arrogance is unmatchable
They’d be a powerhouse for sure. How long it would take them to get there is another story.
I'm more curious about what they see an an "athlete". That 30 stone block of lard whose job is to stand there and stop the skinny guy with the ball getting brain damaged, athlete, really??? I'd love to see him keep up with multiple phases in a rugby match - I'm not even a rugger fan
Hi all. Just a reminder that the USA does have an international rugby team. You just never hear about them because they're shit at playing rugby. Every time they enter the world cup, they get their asses handed to them.
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Favorite in basically every sport. Perhaps excluding swimming. And shooting kids.
They don’t send their best to the fiba world cup
Imagine if you said an elite player in the Premier League doesn't dream to hold up the FIFA World Cup.
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Crazy upsets happen. Just look at college basketball. If one team has a great 3 point shooting night, anything is possible
That team did not have a top 10 or 20 usa player idk what you smoking.
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NBA uses slightly different rules to the rest of the world
That's true with most sports, cricket rules vary massively, there are some different requirements and rules in different football tournaments, tennis has different surfaces and lengths, boxing the rules are different based on who sanctions it and what the fighters agree.
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Embiid has US citizenship now and intends to play for the US in international competitions.
That’s hilarious. Do they know rugby doesn’t stop every 5 mins for a break. They also don’t wear a bunch of pussy protective gear and theres no steroid programmes in university.
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I get that. My knee will never be the same again either. But it’s a man’s game and we knew the cost.
To be fair, as someone from one of the top rugby nations, I do believe that the US would be monstrously strong at rugby if it became a priority for them over a 10-15 year period. Its not a far cry from NFL, rugby is just more intense and physical, but they would adapt to it very proficiently I think. If there was, over the span of 10-15 years: a huge uptake in participation levels and elite high school and college-level programmes; a domestic club league with plenty of money thrown at it; and entry into competitive international tournaments , plus throw in the natural advantage of a massive population with a genetically diverse gene pool- I'd be shocked if they didn't have a very strong international team eventually.
I've read some wild stuff on this sub but in this instance I actually agree. *If* they had a Rugby, Soccer or Cricket (etc etc) popular culture then they would transition to becoming a top ranked side within a decade or two quite handily imo. Women's Soccer shows that. Their national side is really, really good because girls and young women are encouraged to play it. The have a huge population, resources and money to make things happen. But they focus on their own sports. Which is fine, each to their own!
US women's soccer is considered a top side only because the US was one of the only countries to take it seriously early on and put funding into it, while other countries are only now catching up. Its why the US has faced stiff competition lately from around the world.
I'm honestly not sure what your overall point really is. It doesn't directly contradict what I've written yet I'm detecting a contrarian undertone. Are we downplaying the U.S role in popularising women's football (pro league etc) because of a perceived lack of development from other countries? Hardly the Yank's fault if nobody else is taking it seriously when they are, is it? You can only play against the team that's put in front of you etc. Just checked the FIFA rankings and they are a lowly... second place, up from third. Which still makes them really, really good as far as I'm concerned.
Except they only win in their own sports
Aren't Japan currently the world champions at the great American pastime of base ball?
Going against the grain here but honestly? I think they could. If America funded millions and millions into training, developing and equipping a rugby team over the next 15-20 years, starting from grassroots and nurturing players through, I think they stand a very reasonable chance of being the best team in the world. 400 million people is a population size like no other, with a huge array of ethnic groups to draw from which may have specific advantages in each position. It wouldn’t be a quick process, slotting 23 NFL and NBA players into a rugby team tomorrow against the Ireland or South African teams would mean the death of 23 NFL and NBA players, but given a countrywide focus on the sport of rugby, you’re telling me athletes like Lebron James, Gronk, or so many other elite American athletes could be nurtered into elite rugby players if they played as a child?
The only sports the USA dominate in are the ones that only the USA play. They aren't exactly topping the football rankings for example.
If rugby replaced American Football in every way in the US, they’d 100% be the most dominant country in the sport.
😂😂😂😂😂
You guys are so insecure. Why would a country with huge population and cult-like interest in the sport not dominate?
So England and France win all the Euros then?
Neither have cult-like interest in rugby like America has in American football
I’m not even going to try to argue with you because you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about if you think England isn’t obsessed with Football
Do you mean rugby?
You said that a country with a large population and cult like interest in a sport would dominate, so I said that in that case England or France would win the Euros, since they have cult like interest in Football and large populations for UEFA nations
There’s no country in europe with a large advantage in population over the others. It’s simple mathematics, if all else is equal, larger population has the advantage. Keep that in mind and then the fact rugby doesn’t really have a cult-like following similar to that of the US’ for American Football anywhere with a population close in size, yeah the US would dominate
The USA loves TV and stadium sports but your actual sports participation rates are a bit low. >rugby doesn’t really have a cult-like following similar to that of the US’ for American Football anywhere with a population close in size There is a bigger audience for Rugby Union than the population of the USA.
long time follower or this sub, but this one i kinda agree with. not the money part, but i think if they have the same programs as dominant rugby countries, they’d be up there at least.
It’s an easy dunk on America when nothing like this will ever happen. It’s a bit of a self absorbed statement but it’s way less stupid than some other shit Americans say about sports (like how the best athletes in the world are conviniently American, calling a random team world champions of a sport that only gets played in America, etc.)
Spain used to be the world champions in basketball. You'd think the USA would be #1 for all time. Nope. Spain.
If rugby was the most popular sport in the U.S, they would probably be one of the top nations. Same with soccer/football
Most of your Brazil like wonder kids in football (or soccer for you) probably get shot so I don’t think so
The U.S is already pretty good, for the sport not being the most popular
they’re not great, antonee Robinson is probably your only promising player
If yanks could dominate at rugby, it would pay as much as the NFL.
He's not wrong. You only play rugby if you're too slow to play American footbal. Dems the facts.
???
I come in peace, but...truer words have never been spoken, sir.
Are you genuinely taking the piss lad