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'What it does for the game here': The domestic impact of NRL's Vegas experiment
Sam Kosack • February 7th, 2025 2:08 pm
Year two of the NRL’s Las Vegas experiment is rapidly nearing, but as concerns rise over the game’s ability to crack the American market, journalist Andrew Webster believes it doesn’t matter how the event performs in the USA.
In the first year of the NRL’s five-year plan, a crowd attendance of 40,746 was recorded, but in a massive boost for the game, NRL CEO Andrew Abdo is reporting tickets have already surpassed the 40,000 tickets mark with three weeks to go.
However, Webster believes the bigger impact of the event comes from the publicity and reach the game receives domestically as opposed to in the United States.
“Do we really care about what it rates in America just for the next five years?”, Webster told Morning Glory with Matty Johns.
“No matter what the cost is… it’s what it does for the game here and the ratings were enormous here on both Nine and… I think it was all time ratings on Fox Sports.
“I’m okay if we don't crack America. I don’t care. My only issue is what it’s going to look like in year four or five if it's going to peter out, but this is a really important year for the Vegas concept.”
Webster also said that, despite the high cost of the event, the NRL is optimistic about the growing reach of the event.
The match between the Canberra Raiders and New Zealand Warriors will be shown on Fox, a free-to-air channel with a reach of 125 million homes, while the remaining three games are split between Fox Sports 1 and Fox Soccer.
“They’re (the NRL) very optimistic about Vegas,” Webster said.
“The breakdown of those tickets are 20k from Australia, 10k from the UK, 2k from New Zealand and the rest are from the United States of America.
“I’m concerned about how much it’s costing… there’s talk that last year cost $15 million… one (chief executive) from last year nearly fainted when they got the bill, and they got corkage of about $5-6 per Gatorade that was used in Resort World.
“It’s a big expensive boys trip away but… didn’t it catapult the season to astronomical levels last year.”
The NRL’s Las Vegas season openers kick off on March 1 at 1pm (NZ time), with four games to be played during the day, starting with the One NZ Warriors vs Canberra Raiders.
