Bigger, bolder and better. The desert dust had barely settled on the NRL’s first trip to Las Vegas before league boss Andrew Abdo was doubling down. With a longer runway to plan and prepare for the rugby league extravaganza the next time around, the NRL chief executive was soon promising to go even larger. Now that the league has arrived at its destination, there are more fans in town, more events on the ground, and teams from more countries putting the finishing touches on their own show. Twice as many matches as last year are still to come when all the off-field glitz and glamour are put to one side and the quadruple-header finally kicks off at Allegiant Stadium on Saturday (Sunday AEDT).
The NRL was quick to talk up the wins, no matter how big or small, from its first foray on to the rocky terrain of the US sporting landscape last year. A crowd of 40,746 was the largest for a rugby league game on American soil. More than 23,000 of those tickets were sold in the US. Tickets were bought in another 30 countries. New subscriptions to the international streaming app Watch NRL soared 167% – admittedly from a low base – compared to the same period leading into the previous season. And, most hopefully, an average of 61,000 Americans households watched the Sea Eagles’ win over the Rabbitohs, while 44,000 later watched the Roosters defeat the Broncos.
The gamble to start the season in the US in the hope of attracting global attention instead found its biggest payoff closer to home. The Australian television audience smashed the record viewership for a season opener by 10.5% while also becoming the most watched regular-season game in history, as a combined 4.11 million watched the double-header. The hype surrounding the first jaunt to Las Vegas, and heavy support from a media contingent helpfully in tow, jolted the league into a record-breaking season and has since taken on a life of its own.
“We were very, very keen on the event as a big stunt that starts the Australian season,” Foxtel Group chief executive, Patrick Delany, tells Guardian Australia. “The extraordinary thing about this is it has become a massive Australian event even though it’s not in Australia.”
Ticket sales to the four matches that will begin with Super League sides Wigan and Warrington squaring off have already surpassed the total number sold last year. Adding a pair of clubs from the rugby league hotbed of northern England to the program, as well as a historic women’s international between the Lionesses and Jillaroos, has ensured that twice as many fans are travelling from the UK this time. More than 20,000 Australians are making the much longer sojourn to Las Vegas, compared to 15,000 in 2024. Whether as many fans from the United States, regardless of that number being boosted by expats originally from the competing nations, can push the crowd figure closer to the stadium capacity 65,000 remains to be seen.
The NRL might be well on its way to creating a new destination event that Delany calls a “second Magic Round” but its hopes of expansion, long held up as a key pillar of the Las Vegas experiment, more likely rest on finding a way into more American homes. Foxtel, with its sporting arms Fox Sports and streaming platform Kayo, is a critical partner in that journey and helped leverage relationships to secure a spot on free-to-air channel Fox for the NRL opener between the Raiders and Warriors. It will be the first NRL premiership game shown freely on US television, though it was a misstep not to schedule the Panthers and Sharks in the time slot if only to showcase the four-time premiers and the talents of their star playmaker Nathan Cleary to a fresh audience.
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Gambling, along with the occasional hints of bad behaviour, are familiar clouds hanging over the Las Vegas venture. Australian Rugby League Commission boss Peter V’landys earlier this week talked up “a possibility that we’ll actually return a profit on Vegas”, but while ticket sales and streaming subscriptions are tracking in the right direction, and new sponsorships have been announced, there has been little talk about reaching the promised land of the lucrative US sports betting market. For now, the view seems to be; if you broadcast it, they will come.
For all the backslapping after the NRL’s first visit to Las Vegas, and typically brash talk from rugby league bosses of putting on a bigger, bolder and better show this time, there is still much to be done to live up to their much grander plans.
