[quote]thosebananas wrote:
rugby has higher tv viewing figures… more players world wide.
NFL - 0
Rugby - 2[/quote]
Put the crack down… back away from the pipe… you must be high
If I say Dallas Cowboys and you say…some popular rugby team which one is more known world wide?
the rugby team obviously… no one who doesnt have an interest in NFL from europe, brtain and the entire southern hemisphere knows nothing about it… but mention some team like bath, london Irish even the team i used to play for Ulster. and its known.
more people play rugby
more people watch rugby
2-0
i know you’re a legitimate poster, but this is a borderline troll due to the fact that you aren’t taking the other side’s points, especially jtrinsey’s, into account. yes, rugby is more popular outside the U.S., but the NFL still has a higher attendance. not our fault we have more people here…or maybe it is. point is, colleges (michigan and penn state come to mind) can get 100,000 in a stadium.
but, above all, it’s apples and oranges. two different games. hard to compare two sports’ popularity that aren’t very well-renowned in the other place (US vs. everywhere else).
i am takeing there points into account and then challenging them. i live in a country with barely 1 million people in it… and our grammer school rugby final is able to get 13,000 people at it. im shite at maths but i assume that maybe a bigger proportion as opposed to the 100,000 at college games. and yes i no your gonna come back at say my example is a one off game, while the big attendances go on each week…
surely the fact that a sport which has been pro a shorter period of time but more well known worldwide equals greater popularity?
i have conceded the fact that its hard to compare the athleticism etc becasue their are so different…
also i think its strange that rugby was invented in 1820 and american football around 1860. yet nfl still basically remains in america but rugby is global…
[quote]thosebananas wrote:
also i think its strange that rugby was invented in 1820 and american football around 1860. yet nfl still basically remains in america but rugby is global…[/quote]
Rugby is big primarily in countries that were at some point colonized by OTHER rugby-playing countries (see United Kingdom): New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, etc. It’s influence and popularity wasn’t spread by word-of-mouth, it was a by-product of imperialistic ambition.
[quote]thosebananas wrote:
jtrinsey wrote:
It’s plain and simple; if international rugby players could play in the NFL, they would. Not all of them, but you would be seeing significant amounts of them transitioning to the NFL. Why? More money.
I love volleyball. I play in college and aspire to play at some professional level some day. But you better be damn sure if the NBA called me up and offered me a contract I’d accept in a second because the amount of money, fame, importance of the sport, is so much bigger.
The best Rugby Super League seems to pack 15-18 thousand fans in for games. The best college football teams in America pack 100,000+ fans in the stadium.
The best Super League players seem to make about a million a year with the stars making more. The best players in the NFL can 10 million or more per year.
As far as the best athletes go, it is obviously dependent on your definition. In terms of size, strength and explosive power, no team sport can touch American football, simply by the nature of the game. Since the plays are short bursts followed by a recovery period, it allows the players to be bigger/stronger/faster without having the demands of running up and down the field all game with no breaks.
As far as watchability goes, that’s completely subjective. Obviously in America it is no contest but internationally Rugby is more popular.
There is no “better sport.” However, it’s safe to say that if Rugby players were able to make it in the NFL you’d be seeing a lot more of them lining up on Sundays.
but the fact the rugby players hae been training their whole life for one game. means it would be difficult to just switch. but i do think it would be easier for a rugby star to switch ti nfl than an nfl star to switch rugby…
also your arguement about attendance is subjective too. as america has a population many times greater than uk, then of course it is going to have bigger attendance’s.
Scott
[/quote]
I completely disagree with the statement that it’d be easier for a rugby star to switch to football than vise versa. I play highschool football, and the level of knowledge required to play most positions, especially offensive line, blows my mind. I end up having to study the playbook and going over my blocking steps everynight just in order to keep up. Not to mention remembering all my assignments for linebacker and interpretting the coach’s signals from the sideline in order to call the play in the defensive huddle.
On the otherhand, this is my first year playing rugby and I already pretty much have it down. Once you get past the initial confusion over rucks and mauls and line outs it’s really all simple to learn and play.
Not to mention the physical caliber of NFL players. I don’t even think about playing college football, not to mention NFL.
[quote]Zelazo wrote:
On the otherhand, this is my first year playing rugby and I already pretty much have it down. Once you get past the initial confusion over rucks and mauls and line outs it’s really all simple to learn and play.
[/quote]
No you don’t. You don’t even know enough to know you don’t know anything. Rugby, especially played at a higher level, is a VERY intricate game – but you haven’t been playing long enough to realize that. Like I mentioned earlier, to the inexperienced, a rugby game can look like a big clusterfuck. To those in the know, it’s quite the opposite.
It’s simple to play, but not simple to play well. Don’t confuse the two.
[quote]SinisterMinister wrote:
Zelazo wrote:
On the otherhand, this is my first year playing rugby and I already pretty much have it down. Once you get past the initial confusion over rucks and mauls and line outs it’s really all simple to learn and play.
No you don’t. You don’t even know enough to know you don’t know anything. Rugby, especially played at a higher level, is a VERY intricate game – but you haven’t been playing long enough to realize that. Like I mentioned earlier, to the inexperienced, a rugby game can look like a big clusterfuck. To those in the know, it’s quite the opposite.
It’s simple to play, but not simple to play well. Don’t confuse the two.
[/quote]
What I meant by that is that I have it down, at least at a high school level. More specifically I know enough not to become confused while playing or watching it. Though, I’m aware that I’d stand no chance on a higher level. I still maintain that learning rugby on a higher level is easier than learning football on a higher level.
id love to see some sort of “excahange” program or something for say 1 year at a decent level. see what happens…
[quote]thosebananas wrote:
id love to see some sort of “excahange” program or something for say 1 year at a decent level. see what happens…[/quote]
The rugby players will sustain massive injuries. The football players will not be able to finish a game. By the end of the year, the football players are ok rugby players, and the rugby players are still getting ass fucked in football, due to their lack of appropriate size.
Conditioning can be gained decently fast at the expense of strength. Size cannot.
those bananas must be stuck in your ears. Dude be serious, are you really trying to say that rugby players are more “Athletic” than NFL players?
Really, if they really where our NFL scouts would be recruiting them, and for what its worth. We do recruit the Kicker for punters and thats considered a pansy position in the NFL.
If they do hit harder then we would have them filling the linebacking corp of the NFL.
[quote]jre67t wrote:
those bananas must be stuck in your ears. Dude be serious, are you really trying to say that rugby players are more “Athletic” than NFL players?
Really, if they really where our NFL scouts would be recruiting them, and for what its worth. We do recruit the Kicker for punters and thats considered a pansy position in the NFL.
If they do hit harder then we would have them filling the linebacking corp of the NFL.
[/quote]
They’re half the weight of most linebackers…
He doesn’t understand the weight disparity. Being 220+lbs in the NFL is common for non-skill positions. And for linemen, if you aren’t 300lbs or more, your probably not in the NFL.
Bannanas, this whole post wreaks of you trying to justify yourself as a big many man. They are two games, theres no need to compare. You seem to take it as a personal insult when someone points out that NFL athletes hit harder and are stronger/faster.
As others have said, they are DIFFERENT GAMES WITH DIFFERENT SPECIALTIES. You dont need to justify that everyone who plays rugby is badass because they had to train their whole life, or super cool for being able to run 80 minutes. Rugby players are better at rugby, NFL players are better at football. I don’t see why you dont understand the fucking concept.
Can you really not grasp the fact that there are areas in which on average NFL players are better? It goes the same for both sides. This has turned into a pissing match with you quoting viewers/attendance/meaningless things, and not even considering what others are saying.
I am not trying to say im a big manly man… i play both the sports atm and i wanted to see an americans take on the age long question in our team. many players are current/ex rugby players and some are american/canadiens over at uni.
I conceded the fact in an earleir post that you cant compare the games and the attendance and viewing figures were quoted because i asked which game was more popular and watchable, hence these then become relevant.
all nfl players have my respect and ARE freaks of nature in the most part
i just dont like Big over aweing statements like “we are more athelic becasue we r stronger”… so i asked how they thought they were more atheletic hoping to intice a “HUGEpower/short time v Medium power/medium-long time” debate.
i have been listening and interested and takeing onboard everybodies views.
so sorry if it seems im a stubborn auld rugby loving irishman… but thats what i am 
IT just comes off as a little insecure that every time someone makes a point, you bring up something completely different to try to show that ruby is “better”, is all I’m saying.
I take on board your point. and i have read back over the thread and it looks like a “Brits v Americans” more than anything.
i am batting for the rugby side and thats generally going to be my job in a debate…
The thing is, many elite NFL athletes could have been elite athletes in other sports as well.
Take a guy like Ed Reed, safety for the Ravens. He averaged over 20 points a game in basketball in high school, was an all-district pitcher, and won the state championship in the javelin.
Another example is Troy Polamalu, who in high school was a 2-time all-league basketball player and an all-state center fielder in baseball. This type of versatility is common for the top NFL players.
You think these guys couldn’t excel at rugby if that was their main focus? If suddenly the salaries of rugby players switched places with those of NFL players, you would see a massive influx of NFL players dominating rugby within 5 years.
I reckon they could excel and would excel…
The money thing brings in so many questions… i think its sad you think they would leave nfl and come play rugby! very sad… that shows ZERO love for the game.
[quote]thosebananas wrote:
i am takeing there points into account and then challenging them. i live in a country with barely 1 million people in it…
and our grammer school rugby final is able to get 13,000 people at it. im shite at maths but i assume that maybe a bigger proportion as opposed to the 100,000 at college games.[/quote]
Actually, you’d be wrong. There’s 240 thousand people in the city of Lincoln, Nebraska. Every Saturday, 80 thousand of them watch the Cornhuskers play football.
That’s 1 in 3 people. Hell, there were 57 thousand people at their spring scrimmage… which involves just them. No other team. Just a practice. 57 thousand fans in the stadium for that.
The University of Alabama got 91 thousand people at their spring practice this year. There’s only 170 thousand people in Tuscaloosa County, the area of over 1000 square miles which surrounds the university.
Penn State gets over 100 thousand people in their stadium every single regular season game. There’s less than 150 thousand people in Centre County, an area of over 1000 square miles which surrounds the school.
There are high schools in America which pack over 10,000 people in the stadium every Friday night to watch kids play football. These are not extremely rare and not just in big cities. There are dozens of towns across Texas like this an in plenty of other states.
I’m not trying to shit on rugby. I’m really not. It seems like a cool game. A couple buddies of mine when I played football in high school played rugby in the spring and they said it was a lot of fun.
However, I just don’t think that people outside of the US can comprehend what football means in America. The only thing that can compare to it is soccer in other countries. Even then I’d make an estimate that the only thing that can compare to football in places like Texas or Alabama is soccer in South America.
This picture I’ve attached is of the Penn State stadium on game day. Over 100,000 fans almost all dressed in white and most of them traveling 3 hours or more to see these guys play.
And not a single one of those players is a professional. Many eventually will be but those are still amateur players drawing that type of crowd, every week in the fall.
Looks jaw droppingly amazing… i stand corrected!