{"id":957718,"date":"2026-11-09T02:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T02:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/957718\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T02:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T02:48:14","slug":"rugby-league-world-cup-news-usa-to-host-2030-tournament-teams-increased-for-mens-and-womens-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/957718\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby League World Cup news: USA to host 2030 tournament, teams increased for men\u2019s and women\u2019s draw"},"content":{"rendered":"

International Rugby League (IRL) has announced massive changes for the next Rugby League World Cup<\/a>, with the tournament heading to America for the first time.<\/p>\n

After a blockbuster edition in Australia and New Zealand over the past month, the governing body has now confirmed plans for the 2030 tournament.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Samoan and Tongan fans have taken over the RLWC.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

The biggest move is that hosting rights will go to the United States, with the growth of Pacific Island nations such as Tonga and Samoa making the tournament a more attractive proposition.<\/p>\n

The US cities to play host have not yet been announced, but the IRL confirmed Magic Round-style weekends would take place, where all matches will be held at the same stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a strategy to maximise the interest of broadcasters, government partners and fans in the current World Cup, which has regularly broken records for crowds and the number of television viewers because of the outstanding skill, intensity and passion of the players and teams,\u201d IRL chairman Troy Grant said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to take advantage of opportunities that are opening up in new frontiers where the Rugby League World Cup hasn\u2019t previously been played.\u201c<\/p>\n

Hawaii, California and Utah are considered viable destinations to host RLWC games given their large Polynesian populations.<\/p>\n

The bold move comes as the NRL<\/a> continues to play season openers in Las Vegas, with 2027 to be the fourth-straight year of the experiment.<\/p>\n

It was also announced that the next men\u2019s tournament would now include 12 teams, with the women\u2019s draw increased to 10 nations.<\/p>\n

The decision to increase the number of teams would open the door for the likes of Italy, Greece, Ireland, Scotland, Jamaica and USA to take part.<\/p>\n

There are also plans in place to host the 2034 RLWC in Europe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"International Rugby League (IRL) has announced massive changes for the next Rugby League World Cup, with the tournament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-957718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957718","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=957718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}