The All Blacks have been at the forefront of rugby’s attempts to make an imprint in a notoriously tough sports market.<\/p>\n
Ireland memorably beat the All Blacks for the first time when the teams met in front of a capacity 60,000-strong crowd at Chicago’s Soldier Field in 2016,<\/a> with a 2025 rematch proving a similar commercial success.<\/p>\n New Zealand have also staged matches against the United States – a 104-14 victory in front of about 40,000 fans in Washington, external<\/a> – and Fiji – a 47-5 win before 33,217 in San Diego<\/a> – in the country over the past decade<\/p>\n However Gilpin believes that the history of the Six Nations and its ability to connect with expatriate fans in the United States could be a useful tool to crack America further.<\/p>\n “This isn’t a live discussion of an Italy vs Ireland game, but why we use that as an example?” he added. <\/p>\n “You’ve got two fantastic fanbases in the US of Irish and Italian fans<\/p>\n “If you could take a Six Nations game to the right place, to a Boston or to a New York, where there’s a lot of those fanbases, you can definitely drive the economics.<\/p>\n “Now, you’re going to have Irish fans and Italian fans in those respective home countries saying, ‘Hang on a minute, you know, we want to see our country play?’ <\/p>\n “The counter-argument to that [is] it’s still Irish and Italian fans getting the chance to watch their team, so they’re just not the ones who live in Ireland and Italy on this occasion. But that’s a balancing piece we’ve got to work through.”<\/p>\n Wales played their home matches at London’s Wembley Stadium during the 1998 and 1999 Six Nations while the Principality Stadium was being built, but such a long-haul venue switch would be unprecedented in the tournament’s 143-year history.<\/p>\n England women’s head coach John Mitchell, who led the United States’ men’s team earlier in his career, said he was unsure whether a stateside expansion would ultimately succeed.<\/p>\n “I’ve worked for America. I understand that geography,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n “American sport is full of rivalries and I just don’t think Americans adjust to new rivalries or new franchises compared to probably some of the other countries.<\/p>\n “Will rugby ever go big there based on its its early investment?<\/p>\n “I’m not sure I can answer that, but what I do know is that rugby union is a difficult challenge for large parts of America.”<\/p>\n He was also wary of the prospect of a Red Roses’ Six Nations match being staged in the United States.<\/p>\n “The visibility’s huge here in the European market,” added Mitchell.<\/p>\n “Let’s use it because that’s the way to grow the game slowly, rather than putting huge investments into something that might have potential, but not necessarily that visibility.”<\/p>\n While World Rugby could support a stateside Six Nations game, the decision would lie with the competing teams, all of whom would be aware of the consternation that would come with transplanting a fixture thousands of miles away.<\/p>\n The schedule for the 2027 editions of both the men’s and women’s tournaments have already been set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The All Blacks have been at the forefront of rugby’s attempts to make an imprint in a notoriously…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-887094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}