Matt Case and Toby Willis are young men who share a vision of bigger and better things for wrestling.     Case and Willis share much: both were 1992  graduates of, and wrestlers at, Northwestern; neither of their names are found in the wrestling record books; both are musicians; both recently had  computer occupations.    Can you imagine real wrestling having city teams belonging to leagues not unlike professional baseball or football?¿Where Teams would look like Olympic teams? Where rules would be a hybrid of those used for international, college and sumo wrestling? Where rules will maximize action and make scoring easy to understand? Where the arena, music, ambience, the surroundings convey a feeling of excitement, anticipation, and pride? Where many of the participating athletes were World and Olympic medallists?Where the athletes names are recognized and heard often in everyday conversation? And where millions of fans are addicted to the sport?    If Matt Case and Toby Willis have their way this will happen. They will make  it happen. These two entrepreneurs have established an organization, RealProWrestling (realprowrestling.com), to realize their goal which Matt Case states is "to create a truly professional wrestling league, with teams based in cities."    And why can such an idea become reality? Case asks, "Did you know that wrestling and boxing were the two biggest sports in America up until the 1920s? That's when faster paced and better marketed sports like football and baseball took over. And yes, I say fast paced for baseball because wrestling matches often lasted hours. Big business took these new products of baseball and football and marketed the heck out of them. Why can't we do that for wrestling?"    Anyone involved with wrestling recognizes the issue that Case and Willis will face: creating a market. The following huge question both characterizes the market for wrestling and asks why it is that way: How can a sport that is loved so much be loved by so few?     A most recent example of this was the Kurt Angle Classic in New Orleans on November 8 of this year. It was USA vs. the World and the very best wrestlers on our planet competed. The 4,000 seat arena maybe had one out of every ten seats actually holding a human being.On several occasions enthusiastic entrepreneurs have attempted to introduce wrestling as a business. Achieving success has been illusive. Why have they failed and why does Matt see success?    "Wrestling has never been mass marketed in today's culture, nor has it used great production techniques, with the exception of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It has never had great camera work, never very good photography, and never any hype. Nobody knows when it is on TV. Also, the rules are never explained well and international rules are always changing. We will have rules simple enough for Joe Blow to understand... and what is critical is to have commentators who can explain them simply, just like John Madden does for football," Case said.    Case also opines that "People aren't aware that the viewer landscape of professional sports is changing."    As discussed in a recent article from the LA Times: 'The new generation is gradually losing interest in traditional sports, according to several key indicators. While a majority of kids in the U.S. still follow pro football, basketball and baseball, a national poll shows the 12- to 17-year-old fan base eroding in the last six years. Children still flock to youth leagues, but teen participation has dropped, especially when compared with the boom in snowboarding and skateboarding. "They are used to video games and doing things quickly," said David Tice, vice president of Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research. "Kids just don't have the attention span to watch games anymore." All the marketing research in the world cannot explain this attitude any better than 19-year-old Benjamin Baker, who says: "If something doesn't happen in the first five minutes, I'm gone."    Case adds, "If cheerleading and skateboarding can get on television, so can wrestling. All it takes is some creativity, bucks, and smarts. We've test marketed enough to know that the average Joe would find it engaging, when its packaged properly. Don't get me wrong, "properly" is going to take a lot of work and probably some luck, but we can not stand idly by and see our sport get the crumbs from the table of other sports that do not have the history or the intensity that our sport has."    "We do think this is likely a niche market, but who really knows how big it can be? We need to awaken those core fans to our idea and get new fans interested from other combat/contact sports like UFC, NFL, and perhaps the WWE. Consider this, while we do have a relatively small number of fans, we already have a built in TV audience. Most television audiences are built from scratch.Who really knows how many other fans from the general sports public will jump on board?" asked Case.    What is Case's biggest challenge? "Getting the wrestling community behind us. Every time we bring up our plans with non-wrestling business people, for example, our PR firm (which is the largest in the world - PMK) they understand our idea. We have too many naysayers in the wrestling community, I think, due to failed past attempts at a real pro league. We need believers in our sport to help. We need people to convince their neighbors and friends that this could be one incredible sports product.     To sell the country. RealProWrestling simplified business plan involves these three steps:  1.  "A weekly television show to gauge if the interest level is sufficient to support our endeavor. We will market the show and have the show market the sport by making wrestling big and cool and creating the right amount of buzz. We will start with our exciting fan base and grow it using cross-market fans from other combat/contact sports."  2. Tour several teams around the country to "piggy-back" fans we've created via the show."  3. "Assess the interest level and then move forward (or not) with a league."    "While we currently think this three step approach is the best, we are studying other methods to help us reach the goal of a league. It could be that a network and/or advertiser really wants to see a league happen now. If that is the case, we certainly aren't going to dismiss that notion," said Case     The first pilot television show was taped before a live audience on Saturday, October 26 at the Los Angeles Center Studios. For the show two seven-men teams for both Freestyle and Greco-Roman Wrestling were established. They attracted many of the nation's best wrestlers (a $1600 stipend was provided and an additional $500 went to each winning team), constructed a gladiator-style setting, selectively modified a few of the international rules, included background stories about the sport and the athletes, and added a backdrop during the matches of loud music described as "High-powered hard work, heavy guitar, fighter-like." Six of America's seven-men 2002 Freestyle World Team attended the event and five competed.    The most significant rule change was to give a point for pushing one opponent out of bounds. In effect the match took on a bit of Sumo style. This change to the rules significantly reduced the the number of  breaks in the action since wrestlers actively avoided the out of bounds line. Fans were treated to 14 outstanding freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling matches.    Fans were genuinely impressed with the event.¿á I have talked with wrestler Chris Bono, wrestling club president Nancy Schultz, National Coach Kevin Jackson, wrestling fan Keith Thorp and read quotes from other attendees. And a clear consensus has emerged; the new rules are much better than existing international rules, the venue and ambience substantially enhanced fan enthusiasm, and the overall program is the best they had seen for introducing wrestling to the general public.     I asked several people, "What single facet stands out in your mind as you look back to the RealProWrestling pilot.?" Here were their responses:    World Team Wrestler Chris Bono: "Scoring a point f