It’s looking more likely the 2024 NRL season opener in Las Vegas won’t be the last time we see rugby league played in the States.
For many American citizens, there is, and perhaps always will be, one football; American football, or gridiron, as it’s known elsewhere. For them, this is the cream of the footballing crop. It won’t get better than a 50-yard Patrick Mahomes bomb or a crunchy Aaron Donald sack.
That’s not stopping rugby league from chancing its hand at making it stateside. Perhaps the sport will fare as well as the AFL in China, or perhaps it will succeed like previous Australian exports to the United States; Russell Crowe, Margot Robbie, Hugh Jackman and Jordan Mailata.
Either way, rugby league’s reported entry into the United States market is as brave as Amelia Earheart’s solo journey across the Atlantic Ocean. If all goes to plan, the move could catapult rugby league’s global standing.
All the key details about the proposed NRL America competition
What exactly is NRL America?
According to various reports, the discussions centre around a 10-team rugby league competition in the United States of America, with five teams based in the East and five in the West.
Rugby League America (RLA) boss, Steve Scanlan, is the architect of the plan, confirming to News Corp that preliminary discussions about ‘NRL America’ with ARL Commissioner Peter V’Landys have been ‘positive’.
‘We could certainly do this without the NRL, but if the NRL was to come on board, the synergies and partnership opportunities would be enormous for the game in America and lend an amount of legitimacy to what we are doing,’ Scanlan explained.
According to the RLA head, the competition has secured deals with a hotel partner and airline to cover accommodation and travel for the league, which is hoped to kick off in 2025.
While Scanlan explained the expectation isn’t for the NRL to invest financially into the competition, he believes ‘if we could have co-branding and form a partnership with the NRL, this can be an untapped goldmine.’
The announcement comes with the NRL on the brink of its first foray into the American market with its 2024 season opening double header in Las Vegas, which is set to broadcast nationally across the States.
Which cities could we see franchises in?
According to reports, three franchises, in New York, Dallas and Las Vegas, have already been sold for a start-up franchise fee of US $1.5 million (AUD $2.3 million).
In New York and Las Vegas, the competition has nailed two of America’s largest sporting markets, while Dallas is a hotbed for sporting passion and a perfect gateway into Texas for rugby league.
A further indication of where the remaining seven franchises could come from lies in the teams that feature in the amateur US rugby league competition. On the West Coast, currently, there are three sides in Los Angeles, one each in Sacramento, San Diego and Santa Rosa, as well as four in Utah.
On the opposite side of the country, there is a team each in Tampa, Jacksonville and Naples – all cities in Florida – as well as one in Georgia.
Is rugby league popular in America?
Not particularly, but it’s growing. This is understandable for a new sport entering a market saturated with some of the world’s leading leagues, including the NFL, NBA and MLB. Rugby league’s popularity and prominence in the United States of America is, as a result, in its infancy.
In addition to an amateur league, the nation boasts a national team, which currently includes Cronulla’s Ronaldo Mulitalo and has featured in two World Cups since 2013. In the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, the USA reached the quarter-finals, its best ever finish at the tournament and boasted the likes of Junior Paulo and Clint Newton on their side.
What could it mean for the game?
Growth.
The USA presents the NRL with untapped broadcasting and commercial partnerships that could ensure the NRL’s financial growth continues long into the future. Rugby league has already shown its pull in securing a deal with national broadcaster Fox Sports, a deal facilitated by News Corp chairman, Lachlan Murdoch.
It’s reported this deal is set to bring in over 100 million additional viewers to the Las Vegas double header that kicks the 2024 season off. While it shouldn’t be expected for these figures to be replicated when NRL America begins in 2025, they offer a positive indication of the potential for rugby league in America.
Elevated US viewership of the NRL America competition would not only be fantastic for the competition’s growth in the home nation but also right across the globe, including within Australia. As a sport, rugby league is a fantastic spectacle loaded with physical toughness and technical prowess that, should it earn the respect of America, would undoubtedly begin earning the respect and admiration of other nations.
Not only would this impact the growth of rugby league in the States, but also the NRL as a growing net of rugby league fans seek to get their rugby league fix from the sport’s pinnacle competition.
Outside of increased eyeballs on rugby league and the impact this would have right across the game, such growth would potentially increase the sport’s broadcast revenue and commercial partnerships, in turn allowing for all corners of the game to grow further.
For players, should the NRL America succeed it would offer them an additional overseas destination to ply their trade that isn’t the UK’s Super League. As recent World Club Challenges suggest, the level of the premier UK rugby league competition is growing but few could argue the allure of Las Vegas and New York outweighs that of Leeds or Huddersfield.
Perhaps more importantly, NRL America would provide a pathway for rugby league to tap into the American athlete pool, which boasts some of the finest athletic products anywhere around the world.
American athletes are some of the finest on the planet; one sweeping look through the NBA or NFL confirms as much. Not only as they physically imposing, but they’re incredibly quick and adept at understanding tactical instructions and transferring them onto the field.
The NRL America potentially opens the door for a pathway program similar to the one that has sent several Australians into the NFL as punters.
