NARL: Talking NARL and expansion with New York Freedom coach Mark Offerdahl

Mark Offerdahl

After a decade-long stint travelling the world playing rugby league – also known as living the dream – former USA national team captain Mark Offerdahl had returned to his hometown of Goondiwindi in Queensland, planning on playing a bit of footy while coaching and opening a gym.

It was all going pretty well until COVID hit.

Fast-forward a year and a half, and the 33-year-old forward has relocated to New York, opened another gym and taken over his own rugby league team ahead of the North American Rugby League (NARL) kicking off next month.

Wild times. So, how’d it all happen?

“When COVID hit and the season (in Queensland) was called off, me and my wife were sitting here deciding what we were going to do,” Offerdahl tells Sporting News from his base in New York.

“We took a chance and moved over to New York last September and opened a gym.

“It was pretty risky at the time - it was right in the middle of peak COVID - but they weren’t in lockdown.

“I just saw it as a perfect opportunity to open a gym, because people would be looking to come back.”

More COVID disruptions soon led to him taking over the reins of the New York Rugby League team. 

Initially the NYRL, run by Ricky Wilby and Gary Sloane, was bidding to gain admission to the Super League, like the Toronto Wolfpack had done previously.

The pandemic made that result unlikely in the short term, but an even better opportunity presented itself in the form of the nascent NARL.

“I’d actually met Ricky five or six years ago. I was playing for America and just told him that if there was anything I could do to help, I’d do it,” says Offerdahl, who has played footy in France, Wales, England and America in a decade-long career.

“I just wanted a team to start up, but being realistic, I thought I’d be too old to play by the time it did.

“But when COVID hit, everything fell through with Super League and Toronto, and two or three months later this league (NARL) started. We were just in the right place at the right time. We fell into it really.”

Offerdahl and a good mate rebranded the pre-existing side as the New York Freedom and have already made some big-name signings, with USA international Joe Eichner and former Ipswich Jets captain Rory Humphreys in the squad.

They also signed former Test and Origin player Tony Williams, though he was sacked following an Instagram post in response to Jarryd Hayne's sentencing.

The NARL will be split into an Eastern and Western Conference consisting of six teams each, while Toronto and Ottawa will compete in a separate Canadian league due to COVID restrictions.

Each round will be a ‘Magic Weekend,’ with all games in each conference played at one ground. The Eastern Conference will play in New York, Atlanta, Boston, New Jersey and Virginia, while the Western Conference will play all its games in Nevada.

After a round robin and finals series, the winners of each conference will play a grand final in a set-up similar to the NFL’s Super Bowl.

There’s a salary cap in place to avoid a well-backed team paying overs for players, and a limit of five overseas imports per team.

Every match will be available to watch live on the league’s streaming partner, Sportsflick, and many teams are carrying out combines and try-outs as the season approaches.

It’s a good start, but Offerdahl knows it’s an uphill battle. There’s sponsors to lock down, players to sign and others to coach up.

But at the end of the day, as always, it comes down to finances.

“Money. It’s all money,” Offerdahl says.  

“You pay these young kids to play a sport and they’ll take it seriously, show up to training and do what they’re meant to do.

“If you don’t pay them, you’ll get hardly anyone to training and the games aren’t as flash.

“If you pay them and get a good salary and you’ve got them locked in, they’ll probably choose league over union – they won’t play both.

“That’s what it’s got to come to.”

It’ll be a few years before anyone in the NARL is able to play footy full time, but the league is an important first step on the journey.

The sporting talent is there in abundance, now it’s just a matter of breaking through. While union at least has a foothold in a crowded American sporting market, league is still growing. 

“When you say ‘rugby league’ most people think it’s a league of rugby union,” Offerdahl says.

“It's not that big, but some players are just built for it.

“You say to them ‘you’re fast, fit and smart’ and once they play a game of league, they love it and most of them never look back.

“We just want to get the comp going and develop players for the US national team.

"We’re not going to say in five years it’s going to be as big as the NRL or Super League, because it’s not, but we just need a base to grow.

“You get the better athletes, you get the better product on the field, then you get the better TV deals, more fans and it’s a flow-on effect.”

 

Author(s)