Man after that Olympic performance from Team USA it has got me thinking that we need to expand the exposure if the sport of wrestling. As we all hope that with the efforts of both our Men’s and Women’s teams, brought more eyes onto the sport, how can we keep those eyes on our sport? See I have the feeling that wrestling at the Olympics is the only exposure that our sport has on the public eye except the NCAA Championships in March but that is hidden by the Men’s Basketball Tournament.

So what do I think we should do?

What we should do is have USA Wrestling look into forming what I call the RTC League. If you are new to wrestling beyond college or don’t even know what that is, RTC stands for Regional Training Center and they have served a great purpose for our domestic wrestlers. Almost every major college has a RTC connected to them like the NLWC which has a lot of the Penn State coaching staff and the Hawkeye RTC which has a lot of the Iowa coaching staff. This is where a lot of our wrestlers go after college and it is now starting to be used as an unofficial recruiting tool.

So lets talk about my proposed RTC League. I believe that with the help of USA Wrestling being a governing body we can collect all of our RTC’s together and have dual meet competitions just like NLWC has had over the last year and a half.

How will the league work?

This can be structured the same as a college dual meet season with 10 opponents per team on a weekly schedule. There doesn’t have to be a set day for the dual meets and I think at least 1 dual meet a day will be good enough. This can all culminate into a dual meet playoff with the top 8 or so teams competing in a single elimination, with consolation, tournament to decide who is our nation’s best RTC. There could also be an in-season open tournament, separate from the US Open where the teams can send as many wrestlers as they want. Since USA Wrestling will have a hand in this it can help with seeding wrestlers in qualifying events like the US Open or Senior Nationals.

What time of year should this happen?

I believe the best time of year to do it is in the Summer. Yeah you can be losing guys to other international events but these rosters are pretty big so there could be substitutions in the lineups. Plus it would give off that wrestling is a summer event in the United States since most of our wrestling is done in the winter. Competition wise it would only have to compete with the tail end of the NBA Season and the MLB which I think can be favorable and broadcasting companies like ESPN and Fox Sports will be more likely to offer a broadcasting contract. And yes I do think that this needs to be on TV networks and not just streaming services. Most people have TV networks like DirecTV and Dish so I think it’s important to keep most of it off of streaming websites. I would’ve said the winter but I think it’s important to not take away from college teams like their coaching staff and wrestlers. It could possibly start around the first full week in May and end in early July.

What styles are included and how many weights?

I think the best way to start off is Men’s and Women’s Freestyle and phase in Greco-Roman later down the line. We need to get our best product out in front of new fan base and I think Freestyle is the best option and then introduce people to Greco-Roman. This will have 10 weights in accordance to UWW weight classes so our wrestlers are better prepared and can find out their best weight for World or Olympic qualifications.

This is kind of my first initial thoughts on a RTC League and it probably will not happen but here is to hoping. I do think this is a great idea though because we don’t have a “pro-wrestling” so I think this is the best way to do it. A lot if the logistics like contracts and moving between programs I haven’t thought out but I’m hoping we can keep it the same as it is now that you won’t be so tied down.