re: If football goes the way of boxing due to rule changes, what sport gets big?

NASCAR also has the problem that its harder for people to work on their cars. there's still a dedicated group of "car guys", but cars are now so sophisticated, its much rarer for people to have working on cars as a hobby. And one of the things that drove NASCAR's popularity is, obviously, car guys. And automoting or whatever you call it, as a hobby, is in decline.

Rugby is still 20-30 years away. That's not a knock, that's just how slowly things work. Take basketball, which first started to gain popularity in the 60s and then with the more opened up game in the 70s. It didn't become huge until the late 80s or early 90s. And that's with a sport that had an establish pro league dating back to the 50s.

It takes a long time to establish a sport. Lacrosse has the same problem.