Rugby’s American ambitions make commercial sense. The danger is not taking the game abroad. It is allowing television to change the game people came to watch.

The number that mattered in Baltimore was not on the scoreboard. South Africa beat New Zealand 43–28, scored six tries and secured the series 3–1. But for the people trying to build rugby’s future in America, another figure carried just as much weight: 68,173.

That was the attendance at M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens. Two rugby nations had brought their rivalry to an NFL ground and filled it with people willing to pay to watch. For the players, it was a Test match. For the administrators, it was evidence that an expensive ambition might work.

The United States will host the men’s Rugby World Cup in 2031 and the women’s tournament in 2033. World Rugby has committed £200 million to developing the American market ahead of those events. Baltimore offered an encouraging glimpse of what that investment might deliver. It also raised a question rugby needs to answer before the bigger deals arrive. How much should the sport change to accommodate the people buying it?

There is an important distinction here. The evidence cited does not establish that World Rugby plans to introduce NFL-style commercial timeouts into Test rugby. The immediate issue is less dramatic: advertising placed around existing stoppages, and the growing pressure to earn money from every available moment of a broadcast.

That may sound harmless. Much of it probably is. The difficulty is knowing where to stop.

A rivalry that travels

South Africa against New Zealand was an obvious choice for the American stage. Established supporters needed no introduction. Newcomers did not need a detailed grasp of rugby history to appreciate the spectacle: the haka, the contrasting shirts, the size and speed of the players, the force of the collisions. Promoted as “Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry”, the fixture offered something more useful than a complicated explanation of the sport. It offered a reason to care.

American audiences understand that. Yankees–Red Sox and Packers–Bears are not sold as ordinary fixtures. Their value comes from everything that has happened before the teams walk out. Rugby has plenty of that history. It has not always been good at explaining why it matters to people who did not grow up with it. The Ravens’ involvement in promoting the match helped connect an unfamiliar sport with a familiar institution. The venue gave the occasion credibility. The teams supplied the substance.

There is nothing objectionable about any of this. Good marketing does not diminish a sporting contest. It helps people find it. And the financial case was substantial. Reporting around the event suggested each union could earn up to roughly ZAR100 million (around US$5.5 million) in additional net revenue compared with staging the fixture at home. Events company TEG underwrote the match, while World Rugby provided support because of its importance to the American strategy.

Those were reported projections, not a reason to assume every overseas Test will produce the same return. Even so, the attraction is clear. Professional rugby has bills that sentiment cannot settle. Players, facilities, travel and development programmes all need funding. SA Rugby chief executive Rian Oberholzer has identified financial stability as part of the reason for entering new commercial markets.

Supporters may dislike the language of expansion and revenue growth. They would dislike the consequences of financial failure rather more. The argument, then, is not whether rugby needs the money. It is what the money should be allowed to buy.

Learn from the NFL, but choose the lesson

The NFL offers rugby a useful example of how to enter a market properly. It does not simply move a fixture overseas, sell the tickets and leave. Its international ambitions extend to local partnerships, sponsorship, merchandise, media exposure and community activity. Through its Global Markets Program, franchises can build commercial relationships in territories beyond the United States.

The match is part of a longer project.

Rugby needs that approach. A large crowd on one weekend means little if the audience cannot easily find another game the following week. World Rugby’s work with IMG on media rights and commercial strategy, alongside its relationship with CBS Sports and Paramount+, addresses that problem. A sport needs regular visibility if curiosity is to become a habit.

But Baltimore also showed how far there is to go.

According to the Reuters reporting cited in the draft, some Springboks and All Blacks could walk around the city without being recognised. Players who would attract immediate attention in established rugby countries were largely anonymous. That does not undermine the attendance, but put it into perspective.

A crowd of 68,173 is not the same as 68,173 newly converted American supporters. The stadium included existing fans, travelling supporters, expatriates and people interested in a major sporting occasion. The important questions come afterwards. Who watches again? Who follows a team? Who finds a local club? Whose child asks to play? A sold-out event is encouraging. A returning audience is more valuable.

The broadcast is where the risk begins

There is another side to the NFL model, and rugby should be more cautious about borrowing it. American football is organised around discrete plays. The action stops, teams reset and the next contest begins. Television has built a formidable advertising business around that structure. Rugby has stoppages too. Sometimes too many. Nobody who has watched a scrum reset repeatedly needs to be told that.

But its defining passages depend on continuity. An attack builds through several phases. A defence begins to tire. A turnover changes the direction of the game before either side has properly reorganised.

The interest lies partly in not knowing when the decisive moment will come.

That is what broadcasters must protect. Not an imaginary version of rugby in which the ball never goes dead, but the uncertainty and accumulating pressure that make a match worth following. Advertising around a genuine pause does not automatically damage that experience. An advert that obscures the restart does. So would a pause extended because the broadcaster had something left to sell. The distinction is practical, not sentimental: does the coverage serve the match, or does the match wait for the coverage?

The ITV experiment described in the draft illustrates the sensitivity. In-game advertising during Six Nations coverage, including around scrum situations, prompted criticism. The broadcaster subsequently abandoned the approach for its Nations Championship coverage. Fans know commercial television needs advertising. They are accustomed to it before kick-off and at half-time. What they resent is losing part of the event they switched on to watch.

There is a difference between accepting sponsorship and feeling that the rugby has become an inconvenience between adverts.

Small changes still need scrutiny

The likely danger is not a sudden announcement that Test rugby will be divided into four quarters. It is a series of smaller decisions, each defensible on its own. A sponsored replay. A branded statistic. An advert beside the live picture during a stoppage. None necessarily presents a serious problem.

But once those moments acquire a reliable commercial value, there is a reason to preserve them and potentially to create more of them. That is a risk, not evidence of a current plan. It is nevertheless worth addressing before broadcasters and organisers become dependent on the income.

Legitimate medical treatment, reviews and welfare breaks must remain decisions made for sporting reasons. Their duration should not be determined by an advertising schedule. The football example in the draft makes the point. Hydration breaks at the 2026 World Cup provided advertising opportunities, with Fox attracting criticism when full-screen commercials reportedly caused viewers to miss the resumption of play.

Rugby does not need to repeat that lesson.

Taking a match abroad has a cost at home

Broadcast interruptions are not the only question raised by the American expansion. Moving established fixtures overseas also changes who gets to attend them. Reports of discussions about staging Six Nations matches in the United States suggest an obvious commercial opportunity. A fixture involving Ireland or Italy on the East Coast could draw on substantial communities with ties to those countries.

But a home international is more than a portable television property.

It belongs to a calendar, a city and a set of habits. Supporters arrange travel, meet the same friends and return to the same ground. Those traditions are part of the reason the fixture has value in the first place. There is a financial argument for keeping matches at home, too. England has reportedly resisted the idea, with a Twickenham international capable of generating roughly £10 million.

An overseas offer therefore needs to do more than sound impressive. It must justify what the union and its supporters would give up. Occasional showcases can introduce rugby to new audiences. Moving too many established contests risks making loyal supporters feel incidental to a product they helped build.

Expansion should add something. It should not simply transfer access from one group of paying spectators to another.

Sell what happens around the game

None of this is a case for retreating from America. The opportunity is considerable: major broadcasters, corporate sponsors, established sporting institutions and venues capable of hosting international events. Los Angeles 2028 gives rugby sevens another American platform before the two World Cups arrive.

That sequence offers rugby a chance to build familiarity over several years rather than relying on a single tournament to do all the work. The commercial ambition can also serve worthwhile purposes. Revenue can support women’s rugby, emerging nations, coaching, facilities and player welfare. A stronger American rugby system would benefit more than the balance sheets of visiting unions.

But there are ways to earn that money without interfering with live play.

Better pre-match programmes, sponsored analysis, player documentaries, training access, merchandise and hospitality all offer value. So do local events, youth programmes and partnerships that continue after the touring teams have gone home.

The principle is straightforward: build the business around the match rather than inserting the business into every available gap. Rugby may even find that its difference is part of the attraction.

American viewers already have American football. They do not need a less familiar imitation. Rugby can offer physical confrontation and tactical complexity with a different rhythm, one in which play can turn suddenly and continue beyond the point at which another sport would reset. That is something to explain and promote, not apologise for.

The harder test comes next

Baltimore gave rugby grounds for confidence. A major rivalry could draw a substantial crowd in an American NFL stadium. Broadcasters, promoters and governing bodies had something tangible to work with.It did not prove that rugby had conquered America.

That will require accessible coverage, repeat audiences and stronger connections between international events and local participation. It will require attention to the USA Eagles and the domestic game, not just profitable visits from famous teams. World Rugby should pursue that work. It should learn from the NFL’s patience in developing markets and its ability to keep supporters engaged between fixtures.

It should be far less interested in copying the NFL’s television rhythm. For now, the evidence described points to commercial expansion, not a plan to fill Test matches with manufactured breaks. That distinction matters. Criticism should address what is happening, not present a feared outcome as an established fact.

But boundaries are easier to set before the revenue becomes indispensable.

Play should never be delayed for an advert. Restarts should never disappear behind one. Decisions about player welfare should remain independent of commercial demands. Those are not unreasonable conditions. They protect the thing everyone is trying to sell. Baltimore showed that rugby could attract a crowd in America. The next task is to give people a reason to come back.

The game should still be recognisably the one that brought them through the gates.