It is never ending with the NRL. It’s like a dog with a bone, especially when it comes to trying to push rugby league in places where it doesn’t have a history.
Take Las Vegas for example. Following on from its initial venture into Sin City this past March, the NRL is already trumpeting its Mk II presence which it has scheduled for March 2025.
This year, the National Rugby League, which is in a constant tussle with the Australian Football League (AFL) to see who’s the sporting guru down under, dipped its toes in the water with what it called its Festival of Rugby League. Four NRL teams played a doubleheader at Allegiant Stadium, home to the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders.
There were a couple of sideshows as part of it including an NFL-style combine for American college athletes to try their hand at the 13-a-side code and a local nines competition. There was also a men’s international between the US and Canada, although that was independently organized by the two national governing bodies.
If all you knew about the Vegas festival was what you had seen and heard via the sporting media in Sydney and Brisbane, you would have been led to believe it was a big success. But that would be wrong. The NRL paid for reporters from those two cities to fly to the US to cover its festival and they quite happily drank the Kool-Aid. You see, the media in other parts of Australia doesn’t cover rugby league because AFL rules the roost in the rest of the country.
We’re now getting set to move into the second year of the NRL’s five-year plan to plant its flag in the United States. Initially, it made a big song and dance about how it wants to become part of the American sporting landscape by 2028, or 2030 at the latest, and of course time will tell if it is able to achieve that goal or not.
Lately we’ve been hearing about the plans for 2025, and as to be expected, those same reporters in Sydney and Brisbane have been lapping it all up and championing the NRL’s bold initiative to stake a claim in American sports because after all, the US is the biggest sporting market in the world and blah blah blah.
And here’s where we get to the overkill part.
“Australia’s biggest sport will return to Las Vegas in 2025. And it will be bigger, bolder and better at Allegiant Stadium next year, a never-before-seen extravaganza of global sporting excellence featuring the very best rugby league players on the planet,” is how the NRL is touting it.
This time four games have been scheduled, all on the same day. That’s right, four games. It kicks off with a Super League Europe matchup between Wigan and Warrington to be followed by an NRL contest between Canberra and the Warriors. Then they’ll break things up with a women’s international between Australia and England, before the last game of the day, an NRL fixture featuring Penrith and Cronulla-Sutherland.
So, why do we need four games in one day?
“Bringing together eight teams from the Super League and the NRL, as well as the international women’s Test match, the event showcases rugby league’s global appeal, creating a unique spectacle for American sports fans,” continues the NRL.
But here’s where the NRL loses the plot. For some reason it thinks American sports fans will jump at the chance to see these games, yet as they showed back in March, they’re not interested. The harsh reality that the NRL doesn’t seem to get is that rugby league is not on the sporting radar in this country. The vast majority of people here have never heard of it, let alone the NRL.
One of the few sensible things associated with the NRL coming to Las Vegas this year was the international between the USA Hawks and Canada Wolverines as it was the only game that involved North American teams. While it had nothing to do with the NRL as it was a separate game set up by the two national governing bodies, it made sense because it continued the North American rivalry which local sports fans could relate to.
In 2025, the Hawks will be playing Greece as a sideshow to the NRL festival. Greece? What’s the relevance of that and who in their right mind thought that was a good idea? Obviously, somebody at the US Association of Rugby League (USARL) did as that’s the organization that’s behind the decision.
So, if the goal of the USARL is to piggyback off the NRL’s Vegas event to attract US fans to rugby league, wouldn’t a good way of doing that be to further build on the rivalry with their northern neighbor?
“We were hoping to be playing the US, as we had previous conversations on this with them last year, on making it an annual event,” Canada Rugby League Association (CRLA) president John Cameron tells this RLP.
“However, the US liked the opportunity of a doubleheader, and though disappointed, it’s their prerogative as host. We are, however, now in discussions for an international game with another nation to occur that same week in Vegas and the US has offered to be a third nation host.
“Our IRL representative has been helpful in working behind the scenes to help connect the dots and we’re appreciative.”
On a separate note, to give credit where credit is due, the European Rugby League (ERL) should be commended for scheduling a game between Canada and Americas rival Jamaica. That match has nothing to do with the NRL’s Vegas festival either, but at least the Wolverines will get to play a game for international rankings points at home in Toronto in October.
