Australian Rugby Tackles Las Vegas This Weekend; Can It Open the Door for Other Australian Sports to Follow?

Peter V'landys, chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission, Sees Big Potential in U.S. Market

For the first time ever, Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL) will kick off its Premiership season on American soil, taking to the pitch for a doubleheader on March 2 at Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas. And for Peter V’landys, chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission, it’s about tapping into a market that is much larger than Australia and provides a great opportunity for growth.

NRL players (l-to-r) Campbell Graham, Billy Walters, Spencer Leniu and Aaron Woods in Las Vegas to promote the historic 2024 Telstra Premiership doubleheader at Allegiant Stadium.

“I went overseas to try to sell the NRL broadcast as we wanted to get competitive attention to maximize the return on the broadcast,” he said at a recent Business Sydney function. “And we went to Amazon, we went to Facebook, we went to Twitter, we went to all of them, and they all said, ‘what’s the population of Australia?’ And, I’d say 26 million. They said, ‘see you later,’ you’re so small-scale, there’s 40 million in California. Why would we be bothered with somebody with 26 million that’s just not in our market?”

That reaction got V’landys and NRL to think about the opportunities related to a country that has 340 million people in it.

“I worked out that if we could get 0.1% of the population in America [to subscribe to our streaming service], we would generate $650 million in additional broadcast revenue,” he says. “Even if we got 0.05%  that’s 300 million.”

And that, simply put, is how the NRL is now poised to turn vision into reality. Sponsored by Australian telecommunications company, Telstra, Round 1 of the NRL will see two matches take place in Las Vegas as Sydney teams the Sea Eagles and the Rabbitohs will play a match that will then be  followed by Sydney’s Roosters vs Queensland’s Brisbane Broncos. The first match will be televised in Australia via subscription services  Kayo and Foxtel, while the second tussle will be available in Australia via the Nine Network, Nine Now, Kayo and Foxtel. Both matches will be shot in 4K.

“In order to do that, you need a good partner, which we do with Fox,” adds V’landys. “And if we can get Fox to show us on Fox One in America every week after we’ve promoted it at Vegas, I think it’s got an unlimited potential, not just for rugby league but for all sports in Australia, to sell to a scale that’s much bigger than what Australia will ever be.”

As the Las Vegas venue would suggest, however, the target audience for this year’s opening NRL is the American sports fan. In terms of stadium audience, the NRL is aiming for some 60,000 attendees. US television viewers, meanwhile, will be able to catch the NRL doubleheader live on the Fox Sports’ FS1 channel and the FOX Sports app. The matches are also available to other foreign territories via www.watchnrl.com

“If it works, then you can try other big populations like India or China or those places where there is scale. Australia has a very small population, so if you want a big market, you need to look elsewhere, and that’s why we’ve looked at the US. And I’m very confident that if we do it right, and it all comes back to implementation, if we do it right in America, we can be talking billions of dollars in 10 or 20 years.”

Courtesy of https://content-technology.com/

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