Rugby making ground in United States

Todd Clever, captain of the USA Eagles rugby team, was a guest on NBC Chicago's morning show to promote this Saturday's game against the All Blacks. "Football – you could call it football without helmets," said presenter Anthony Ponce, introducing the item in the condescending voice usually deployed by adults on children's television shows, "is going to be played at Soldier Field next weekend."

For three excruciating minutes, Clever attempted to explain the nature of the sport, like a native struggling to impart directions to an especially bemused tourist. He agreed that "Team New Zealand", as Ponce described them, might be compared to the New York Yankees. He tried his best to make the host understand how, even without helmets and padding, it was still less dangerous than grid-iron.

Eventually, an exasperated Clever boiled it down to the basics: “We pass backwards, run forwards and score like American football but it’s called a try.”

If that awkward cameo sums up how far rugby still has to go to colonise American imaginations, not everybody is quite that clueless these days. The All Blacks' first visit to the United States since 1980 (and that wasn't an official Test) is a 61,500 seat sell-out. NBC are showing it live on national television and it is, by some distance, the biggest game in the history of the fastest-growing participation sport in the country.

Explosive growth

That last boast is down in large part to the explosive growth of rugby as both a social and competitive game on college campuses over the past two decades. Some of those who will line out at Soldier Field honed their skills on university teams but the fact the squad includes players now plying their trade with Stade Francais, Northampton, Edinburgh, Saracens, and Biarritz indicates how much progress has been made. While the Americans are a long way from competing with

New Zealand

, this fixture is intended to have an impact far beyond this Saturday.

This is why Windy City bus stops are plastered with posters of Richie McCaw and Dan Carter doing the Haka. It's about selling a sport as much as a game. Witness Dane Coles and his cohorts in Grand Union Station last Tuesday evening, flinging passes around. During a hectic rush hour, the All Blacks put on a drills and skills session designed to attract and to intrigue commuters who may not have ever seen this kind of oval ball before.

The All Blacks arrive at an opportune time for the sport in America. The decision to incorporate 7s into the Olympics in 2016 has brought investment and, perhaps even more crucially, amplified exposure from NBC. Having paid $7.75bn for the broadcast rights to the Games until 2032, the network tends to magnify anything related to the five-ringed circus. Other channels have discovered rugby too and the European Champions Cup and the Aviva Premiership are now shown live on American television every weekend.

There are many other ways to gauge rugby's gradual move from frat boy pastime towards the mainstream. In recent years, little corners of the big-box sports stores across America have started to sell gear from brands like Canterbury and Gilbert. If that indicates an emerging grassroots market, there are higher profile signs too. Saracens now have a professional relationship with a club in Seattle, and Nigel Melville, former English scrumhalf turned CEO of USA Rugby, has held talks with the Premiership about holding a competitive match over here.

All of the above may also explain frequent chatter about establishing a full-time professional league. Using the Major League Soccer model, predominantly local talent would be augmented by franchise players from overseas, ageing European and Southern Hemisphere icons being attracted by the lifestyle and the chance to extend their careers.

Far-fetched

It might all sound a tad far-fetched except the

NFL

, the most powerful and successful league in the country, has expressed interest in getting involved. There is also the matter of the availability of a ready-made pool of untapped potential talent.

Every year, an estimated 15,000 athletes finish their college gridiron careers with no hope of playing pro. If just a fraction of those could be harvested, the sheer numbers alone should ensure stars eventually being born. Turns out it’s not quite that simple though. Aside from the skills deficit, many coming from gridiron do not have the aerobic fitness to play an 80-minute game of constant movement.

Still, as evidenced by the recruitment of sprinter turned 7s sensation Carlin Isles at the age of 22, USA Rugby is very open to attracting athletes from other codes. They have to be. When Melville took over in 2007, he was shocked that rugby didn’t really exist as a children’s game in America with most people gravitating to it in their late teens. While steps have been taken to put long-term structures in place to rectify that situation, growth is happening organically too.

Last year, Andrew Schmitz, assistant-principal at KIPP Ascend middle school in North Lawndale, started to teach pupils how to play. In a tough neighbourhood in Chicago, he wanted to bolster self-esteem and give them pride in doing something different from their peers. They printed up T-shirts with the slogan: "Illinois' first and only African-American middle school rugby team." The only African-American team in the city, but, for Saturday at least, not the only All Black one.