He was our best flyhalf ever and we've been lacking sorely at the position since he retired. But like you say, he learned his rugby in Australia.
Could you provide some examples? I'd say a company like AEG owning a number of MLS soccer teams at one time is a lot different than the Japanese model.
Well you could look at the Philidelphia Flyers' in the NHL or the 76ers which were both bought by Comcast. In the US there is a tendancy for sports teams to receve part ownership by media companies so they get further control in broadcasting rights. With that said I think it would be difficult to find too many sports teams where teams the 'ownership groups' only consist of individual investors.
There aren't 450,000 registered players. There are 450,000 players (note the IRB links for both the US and Japan say "registered+unregistered"). In my experience in American rugby, teams only register their players (CIPP) if they absolutely need to. Most teams I've played on don't bother registering guys who would never play for the firsts as you only get penalized for not registering players if they play in the playoffs/league matches. This is particularly true at the college and high school levels where "B-side" matches are largely informal affairs. Additionally, there are guys who go and play a couple 7s tournaments in the summer but never register with USA Rugby. But even in spite of that, starting a professional rugby competition in the US would require a massive investment. Let's say you go with a squad of 30 players and you have 8 teams and the average salary is a meager $40,000/year and the coaching staff is paid a combined $60,000/team. That's over $10 million in salaries alone, before you even start renting stadiums, paying for the necessary marketing and travel. And of course travel is expensive in the US because the country is so massive. Expecting USA Rugby, a union that had an operating budget of just over $10 million last year, to be able to foot that kind bill is just not realistic. Again, I'll refer you back to my plan which would slowly transition from amateur rugby to semi-pro rugby to professional rugby.
Ahh, this is really the confusion. So I can assume then that the number of registed players is 115,000 (according to the report you provided in this post, cheers) or just above in th United States where almost all players in Japan are registered (based on the IRB report).
Romania's union has taken a turn for the better since the 2011 RWC and now have a number of excellent initiatives. Rugby in Romania has a long history and it also benefits from a low cost of living (players don't need to be paid as much) and the distances between the cities are nothing like the US. Russia is a more interesting case as it is a massive country and its teams are somewhat spread out (Krasnoyarsk to Moscow is quite a journey), but it's my understanding that the clubs there are at odds with the RUR and the RUR didn't have much to do with professional rugby happening.
Having a relatively weak economy doesn't seem like it would make it easier to have a professional league. Romania interest in rugby has only decreased since professionalism and yet the SuperLiga has remained professional. Just seems very strange. I guess the U.S just hasn't yet found a sponsor willing to fully take that shot just yet.
By the way, you might be interested in this: http://usarugby.org/documentation/USA_Rugby_Strategic_Plan_2013-2015.pdf
Some of the goals are a little high, while others seem a little low but it has a lot of information you might find interesting.
Was interesting read, still fairly unspecific on a XV's men professional league.
