Fantasy Rugby

Fantasy Football, Why Not Fantasy Rugby?

In 1906 Theodore Roosevelt formed a committee to reduce the violence in rugby football establishing in many developing colleges across the nation. With no established rule of the game of rugby it became a dangerous sport to participate. An average of 6 deaths and 160 serious injuries per year raised concern for Roosevelt as his youngest son was enroll into college and joined the rugby team as a freshman.

The committee as known today as the NCAA developed rugby into American football is today. Introducing yardage penalties, the line of scrimmage and greatest difference of the down and distance rules. Influenced by presidential orders, the NCAA defined the difference between Football and Rugby on American campuses. Football became the sport of choice.

Rugby union’s pride of only being an amateur sport while athletic icons took payment for playing on teams that paid the highest salary to draw in the largest crowds. Football became a money making business in America in competition all across the nation. With no television broadcast to see such athleticism, player’s statistics were judged as to value of an individual.

Player’s statistics heavily weighed a person’s ability to play the game in all sports. Baseball cards and Football cards became collectible to fan base. Numbers mattered to team owners, managers, coaches and most importantly the fans.

In 1962 a partners of the Oakland Raiders created a sport with player’s statistics. Drafting players and interest in keeping track of top players was part of theses creator’s jobs apart of the Oakland Raider’s organization. Manually keeping track of statistics and point system was challenging but it was personally and professionally rewarding to being a fan of the game of football and player stats.

Not until 1996 when the internet boom did fantasy football take off on websites. Charging $300 for a group league to play for a computer to take the statistics and points systems for the fantast player. The next year in 1997 with advertisements fantasy football websites was free with popular demand of participates engaging onto advertising websites.

The NFL succeed widening is fan bases and longer hours of fans tuning in per week. In 2000 an average fan engaged five hours per week. While today 33.5 million fantasy football players engages nine plus hours per week. The NFL makes the profit off the audience of attention with T.V. contracts and sports news coverage programs commercials revenues.

The problem with rugby in America is the inability to pay great athletes to convert from football to rugby. Football players will not play rugby unless the pay is right. This is not possible unless the audience is willing to watch and track their favorite athlete perform in competition. Though football has able time to in between downs to keep record of player’s statistics. Rugby is a continuously playing game with many people on the field handling the ball. Is it possible for rugby to develop to be a fantasy sport to better interact with its fan base.

Rugby statistics currently consists of the player’s appearance on the field of a full game or short time. Because the game briefly stops, most recognition of achievement in a rugby game is when scoring a try. For the average game of rugby when there is only a few scores per game this could be lame fantasy sport. Some of the best players do not score but contribute to the team greatly.

What more is there to look for in statistics in a rugby game?

Twitter: @hawkeyerugby
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