In its 2009 strategic plan, USARFU identifies ten primary objectives, among which is to 'create the revenues that support the growth of rugby in the USA'.
With the 20th century well behind us, few persist in contending that government normally leads economic expansion. Arbitrary powers of taxation, however, continue enabling it to set aside normal profit-and-loss mechanics.
Therefore I must disagree with Alex Goff, over at Rugby Magazine, when he writes that 'USA Rugby is not set up, nor equipped, nor should it be, to full staff a major event, market it, drive interest year-round, land sponsors, secure TV contracts, and do that all with the expectation of losing a large amount of money'.
USARFU is in fact fairly proficient at event management. Every year, Boulder conducts dozens of championships, and when it has had the opportunity to stage major internationals -- most recently Ireland and Wales in 2009 -- operations have been smooth and attendance credible. Much the same can be said of last spring's BYU-Cal collegiate tilt.
Is Alex not pointing mainly to commercial execution? Indeed he is, and here the case strengthens. Attempts to increase the scope and scale of the union's events have been wanting. The teams themselves, not marketing or business development, drove the aforementioned successes.
It need not be so. There are no inherent reasons a sports non-governmental *national governing* body (an NGB, to use the parlance) cannot succeed in the marketplace, particularly when it enjoys captive 'stakeholders' -- members who accept services in exchange for dues, rather than returns.
Consider USA Swimming, a sport with a large participation base and world-beating athletes but, as proven over the last 40 years, rather little expectation of penetrating the mainstream market. It boasts well-staged, well-attended events such as its Olympic trials (ever try to get a ticket?) and multiyear, multimillion-dollar deals with major corporations.
Alex is of course intending to contrast the enviable progress of the USA 7s, whose parent company also owns Rugby Mag, as he duly acknowledges, with USARFU's lumbering record. 'USA Rugby is invested in growing the game, getting more players to play, and building it from within. To grow the game as a spectacle, as an event, as a business proposition is a capitalistic endeavor, and that takes a different approach', he observes.
Ever so gently, I would suggest the impediment is philosophical or perhaps metaphysical, but not structural. Despite annual turnover which through 2010 had not exceeded $8 million, USARFU embodies a corporatist mindset rather than an entrepreneurial spirit. Understandably so. Its directors work for large companies or as lawyers and financiers, rather than in Main Street's 'real economy', and beyond taxes it draws key subsidies from the International Rugby Board and US Olympic Committee.
The majority of American rugby's growth, whether measured in playing numbers or dollars spent on gear and services plus dues, originates with youth, school, and senior teams: They are adding members. USARFU skims this growth by raising the price of dues -- despite the 2009 plan's stated expectation of holding prices constant -- and gathering them ever more efficiently.
Ultimately it is unlike the 7s, as Alex is wont to point out, because the money it risks is not its own. Redress this mindset, with a few good hires to follow, and the union is eminently capable of commercial expansion.
It is not soon likely to catch the 7s, which has become rugby's leading conduit into the mainstream market since buying the event from a stricken USARFU in 2006, but we should all hope for test matches to gain prominence in the American sports landscape. The international must always be the highest form of rugby.
