Play Nice 2024 Non AFL Crowds/Ratings and other Industry thread

[threenewpadlocks]

I don't see how those figures can be interpreted in any way other than exceptionally poor.

I'm also not entirely sure the relevancy of comparing to other standard Fox Sports 1 US NRL games (per the article). in a context where the matches start far later into the night.

“The audience of the first game was three times higher than the most watched NRL games on Fox Sports in the past three seasons and over 280 per cent higher than the most recent Saturday games on Fox Sports 1."

We're talking about a 3 1/2 hour later start once you add in the two hours of daylight savings turnaround. There'll be few tens of thousands of people watching every prime time channel almost by default.

As the Guardian article points out a women's college basketball game between UNLV and Nevada (while a local derby, UNLV is barely top 25 ranked while Nevada is not ranked at all, women's college basketball is already small enough even among top 10 ranked teams) in the same timeslot got 68,000 the previous week. That suggests that fewer people watched NRL than whatever default cheapest American sport that they could put on at the time - filler women's college basketball. So it's costing FS1 viewers to broadcast it, and whatever people might tune in in America for the novelty is now seemingly outweighed by the people going "WTF is this" and switching channels.

I honestly don't see this venture lasting too many more years, if it's costing the NRL millions to stage every year. Which makes the sycophantic and one-sided Australian media coverage of it being a success and people quoting uncritical analysis of the NRL leadership discussing it as being worth millions as ridiculous. There's no guarantee that Fox Sports 1 in the US will even want to show it on their main channel next year, let alone the discussions of media and gambling rights deals being worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

If there's a way to cut costs, or to continue to have similar sponsorship deals, cheaper stadium rents, rebates, and similar numbers of travelling fans etc., it doesn't necessarily have to cost millions or be a failure. It just was ridiculous to anyone with half a braincell or without carrying NRL pom-poms that it was going to somehow break through to the US sports market.

 

[le dominateur]

Shocking US ratings but not surprised, the sport is a very low skilled game compared to their big 4 sports.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[The_Wookie]

I don't see how those figures can be interpreted in any way other than exceptionally poor.

I'm also not entirely sure the relevancy of comparing to other standard Fox Sports 1 US NRL games (per the article). in a context where the matches start far later into the night.



We're talking about a 3 1/2 hour later start once you add in the two hours of daylight savings turnaround. There'll be few tens of thousands of people watching every prime time channel almost by default.

As the Guardian article points out a women's college basketball game between UNLV and Nevada (while a local derby, UNLV is barely top 25 ranked while Nevada is not ranked at all, women's college basketball is already small enough even among top 10 ranked teams) in the same timeslot got 68,000 the previous week. That suggests that fewer people watched NRL than whatever default cheapest American sport that they could put on at the time - filler women's college basketball. So it's costing FS1 viewers to broadcast it, and whatever people might tune in in America for the novelty is now seemingly outweighed by the people going "WTF is this" and switching channels.

I honestly don't see this venture lasting too many more years, if it's costing the NRL millions to stage every year. Which makes the sycophantic and one-sided Australian media coverage of it being a success and people quoting uncritical analysis of the NRL leadership discussing it as being worth millions as ridiculous. There's no guarantee that Fox Sports 1 in the US will even want to show it on their main channel next year, let alone the discussions of media and gambling rights deals being worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

If there's a way to cut costs, or to continue to have similar sponsorship deals, cheaper stadium rents, rebates, and similar numbers of travelling fans etc., it doesn't necessarily have to cost millions or be a failure. It just was ridiculous to anyone with half a braincell or without carrying NRL pom-poms that it was going to somehow break through to the US sports market.

Dont see it being on FS1 next year unless they pay for it.

You can forget the 200m in wagering and broadcast deals i think.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Dont see it being on FS1 next year unless they pay for it.

You can forget the 200m in wagering and broadcast deals i think.

Absolutely some Murdoch finagling behind the scenes to ensure that this match was on FS1 in the first place.

I can't imagine that they'll be too happy with comparatively poor ratings. Why wouldn't they just show some random college basketball game that can get higher viewership?

I don't know how reliable these figures are but this suggests the AFL's 2022 Qualifying Final - being played in the early hours of Friday morning for the US - got comparable viewers on Fox Sports 1 (49,000)

Australian Rules Football League Ratings

Latest Nielsen ratings of Australian Rules Football League television program on FS1.

ustvdb.com

Which suggests to me that there was basically no uplift in having the games in America for an American TV audience. If it was broadcast on FS1 at an identical time out of Australia, they basically would have gotten the same FS1 viewership anyway.

 

[010203]

Here's how News Corp is reporting on the NRL's ratings in Vegas

https://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/nrl/las-vegas-double-header-delivers-alltime-nrl-tv-ratings-winner/news-story/d14dc0a80b313b4dbf22b6bdf87a7b5d

 

[weewilly]

Here's how News Corp is reporting on the NRL's ratings in Vegas

https://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/nrl/las-vegas-double-header-delivers-alltime-nrl-tv-ratings-winner/news-story/d14dc0a80b313b4dbf22b6bdf87a7b5d

LOL = only to be expected from News Corp as they don't want to admit it was a failure as they backed it to the hilt it and the games just did not capture the hearts and minds of US sports fans! You would also assume it was run at a fairly decent loss.

For country the size of America those figures are pathetic.

Yes it rated a bit higher than usual in Australia but that was not the reason the NRL went to the US.

I give it 3 years if the gambling deal does not happen.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Yes it rated a bit higher than usual in Australia but that was not the reason the NRL went to the US.

It rated higher in the US simply because it's the first time that the NRL has been on the main Fox Sports Channel (FS1) that early in the night in history.

All other games on FS1 are middle-of-the-night filler with afternoon games in Australia (so therefore late-at-night in the US, rather than middle-of-the-night) being demoted to the FS2/Fox Soccer channels in the US.

This is because as these ratings have proved filler sport such as women's college basketball would rate higher than NRL (and AFL for that matter) as it is not a sport that the American audience has zero familiarity with or have zero context for.

As I said above there's no evidence whatsoever that the NRL got any additional viewers in the US if they had played those games in Australia at an identical time, nor made any impression on the American psyche (the Google Trends data suggest that the figures are lower than the finals or state of origin time, which is presumably just US-based expats Australians who have a passing interest in the matches showing their interest in the most relevant matches). One of the articles above also quoted anonymous US gambling sources and said there was no betting turnover increase above and beyond typical NRL games.

The quoted American fans in the stadium also basically entirely quoted Raiders fans who were there simply because they were hyper-NFL fans and clearly would have had an awareness of any event taking place in their home team's stadium. Some of them even literally sat in the exact same seat that they do for NFL games, just as a matter of routine.

I'm genuinely surprised at the lack of media calling it out for what it is - a junket. NRL establishment thought it would be cool to go to Vegas, journalists were taken along for the ride, and they've cost their sport millions of dollars in doing so and will continue to cost their sport millions of dollars into the future if they continue it. But nobody in the media seems to be referencing this, but I suppose the media narrative can cover it up but the bank balance will speak for itself.

Hell, if I got to go to Vegas for a free trip, I'd be wanting to go back the next year too.

 

[Aussie in exile]

LOL = only to be expected from News Corp as they don't want to admit it was a failure as they backed it to the hilt it and the games just did not capture the hearts and minds of US sports fans! You would also assume it was run at a fairly decent loss.

For country the size of America those figures are pathetic.

Yes it rated a bit higher than usual in Australia but that was not the reason the NRL went to the US.

I give it 3 years if the gambling deal does not happen.

I'm no fan of the Murdoch family mate, but you need them onside because you don't want them as enemies.

 

[Cmarsh]

The fact they are spinning it as the most watched games of NRL in the US ever smacks of desperation to me. That really is nothing to hold your hat on considering these games were promoted to the hills, and dropping from 61k to 44k from game one to game two suggests that the target audience wasnt as captivated by it as the NRL would like to think.

Anyhow, I do admire the imagination they have shown to make this happen. I do wish the AFL would show a bit more vision than they do.

 

[Professor Knowall]

The fact they are spinning it as the most watched games of NRL in the US ever smacks of desperation to me….

Mason Cox alone was watched by far, far, more Americans and had more press coverage in the U.S. than the NRL circus in Vegas …

‘60 Minutes’ features Texan Mason Cox, who’s starring in Australia’s most popular sport

In the TV segment, former Flower Mound Marcus and Oklahoma State standout Marcus Smart looked back at his shared experiences with Cox.

www.dallasnews.com

“Hopefully the AFL at some point makes that commitment": Cox on expanding the AFL audience to U.S soil

“If you get 1% of the population of America to care about AFL it’s more than the whole population of Melbourne.”

www.sen.com.au

… and I’ve done my bit too while over their - yarning to various Americans in bars, honky tonks and wherever both about the virtues of Australia’s indigenous and most popular sport and the exploits of the lanky Texan in that sport

 

[2 eazy]

This is a 5 year project ROI first year was never to be expected. Still needs tons of education and awareness. There are 4 Americans and 2 Canadians I work with all but one are nrl fans and all suggested nrl needs 10 years of investment to have sniff so wait and see in nrl willing to do that

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

This is a 5 year project ROI first year was never to be expected. Still needs tons of education and awareness. There are 4 Americans and 2 Canadians I work with all but one are nrl fans and all suggested nrl needs 10 years of investment to have sniff so wait and see in nrl willing to do that

The problem is that 60k seems so insignificant that it’s pointless. It’s one in every 5,500 people watching, it’s unlikely that someone who watched the game even knows anyone else who seen the game to even talk to them about it. Even if they did watch are they going to convince people it’s now worth watching a game in the middle of the night? We can’t even get Australian’s in the southern states to do that.
It just seems ridiculous to me.

 

[weewilly]

I'm no fan of the Murdoch family mate, but you need them onside because you don't want them as enemies.

Unfortunately the AFL does need the Murdoch's ATM but a big problem coming down the track is when the old man dies is that Lachlan is not a friend of Australian Football but loves RL and no doubt when he eventually has complete control of News Corp/Sky News and Foxtel it will be a big problem for the AFL.

Hopefully when that time comes the AFL has other options apart from Foxtel to stream the matches and dump Foxtel.

 

[2 eazy]

The problem is that 60k seems so insignificant that it’s pointless. It’s one in every 5,500 people watching, it’s unlikely that someone who watched the game even knows anyone else who seen the game to even talk to them about it. Even if they did watch are they going to convince people it’s now worth watching a game in the middle of the night? We can’t even get Australian’s in the southern states to do that.
It just seems ridiculous to me.

Guess they have to alter the messaging and get better awareness. 2 articles written by local journalists seem to enjoyed it also many fans who attended so is appealing just needs to be conveyed better. Nrl should do any thing they can get Kelce brother involved they have immense following and have connection through Jordan Malatia.

NRL are lucky that Fiji Airlines who sponsored it looked after them for airfares and Resort world hotel which significantly reduced their costs.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Guess they have to alter the messaging and get better awareness. 2 articles written by local journalists seem to enjoyed it also many fans who attended so is appealing just needs to be conveyed better. Nrl should do any thing they can get Kelce brother involved they have immense following and have connection through Jordan Malatia.

NRL are lucky that Fiji Airlines who sponsored it looked after them for airfares and Resort world hotel which significantly reduced their costs.

If you think that merely "altered messaging" will convince hundreds of thousands of people to care for a sport that they've never heard of and with no organic presence then I have some stuff I want to sell to you.

They advertised in NFL broadcasts, with billboards, and standard advertising in lV and New York etc. Unless they start paying millions more for advertising, not much more can be done. There's no magic bullet here, surely.

"Local journalists" were just more Murdoch associated bodies ie NY post and the Fox Sports website.

The actual Las Vegas local newspaper sports sections covered local high school softball but not the NRL game. Funny about that.

All of the Americans interviewed either had an existing involvement in the Rugby League/Union community, or were from a very small minority of being hyper-aware hyper-passionate NFL Raiders Fans (ie existing season ticket holders). Both groups of fans by their nature in the US have natural ceilings to their fandom and you're not going to get hundreds of thousands of fans with those two groups.

And of course the sponsorship was valuable. They had it locked down early and the event would be a non-starter if they didn't have it. There's no guarantee the sponsorship will continue, so surely this idea of it being an "investment" is ridiculous because it's dependant on such sponsorship. Say fewer Australians travel next year - what incentive is there for travel sponsorship for the 3rd year?

I'm not sure paying US athletes is worth the money involved. Why would Kelce etc have any interest in the sport? And why would Malatia's statements as a decent player in a non-prominent position in a city on the other side of the country make any difference? It's like if Hayden Young tried to get me to go to the Darts in Wollongong because he grew up playing the sport or something. It wouldn't register at all.

 

[Go GWS!]

The actual Las Vegas local newspaper sports sections covered local high school softball but not the NRL game. Funny about that.

The thrust of your post is spot on, but I clicked on the link you shared to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. These were the stories on the site that you shared that related to the NRL double-header:

• National Rugby League of Australia plays games at Allegiant Stadium | Sports (reviewjournal.com)
• National Rugby League to open season at Allegiant Stadium | Sports (reviewjournal.com)
• NASCAR weekend, Dave Matthews Band, ‘Across the Tracks’ this week in Las Vegas | Entertainment (reviewjournal.com)

The last link had the headline "Top 10 things to do in Las Vegas this week", and I should note that NRL was below Brian Setzer but above Irish Whiskey day. Make of that what you will.

Edit: added the word "last"

 

[weewilly]

Good to see Andrew Dillon putting the FACTS straight in the SMH who at least give the AFL some reasonable coverage!

‘By any measure, we’re the No.1 sport’: AFL boss Dillon won’t concede to PVL

Andrew Dillon wants one million participants in his code across Australia by 2033, using $1 billion of investment. He believes Sydney is a key part of the puzzle.

www.smh.com.au

​

‘By any measure, we’re the No.1 sport’: AFL boss Dillon won’t concede to PVL​

ByJonathan Drennan​

March 6, 2024 — 5.00am


AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon is adamant that his code is still No.1 in Australia, despite the NRL’s successful start to its season in Las Vegas.
Asked about the well-documented aim of Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys to take the top spot, Dillon was resolute.

The new AFL CEO has been confirmed with Andrew Dillon being named as the successor to the top job.
“What we focus on, honestly, is our sport and what we do – and by any measure, we’re the No.1 sport,” he said. “What we’re focused on is just getting our game to as many people as possible.”

Opening Round​

After criticism from the Giants and Swans last year that the AFL was losing ground to the NRL, Dillon helped introduce opening round in NSW and Queensland this year, allowing the code’s non-traditional markets a rare chance to start the season.
The season opener on Thursday night between the Sydney Swans and Melbourne at the SCG will be sold out, as will the Saturday night clash between Greater Western Sydney and Collingwood at Sydney Olympic Park, leaving Dillon delighted with fans’ response to the concept.

AFL CEO Andrew Dillon has set ambitious targets for his code in 2024CREDIT:LUIS ASCUI
“We’re going to have four sell-out games in NSW and Queensland this weekend, and then we’ll have our round one next week, which will be almost as big a round, attendance-wise as we’ve ever had,” Dillon said.
After being asked why the AFL called this round of fixtures “opening round” and not simply round one, Dillon said it was about appealing to a wider audience.


“I’m not a marketing person, I’ll leave that to others more versed in that one, but I think it actually resonates a little bit and it is different to round one because it’s not everyone in it, and we didn’t want to detract from round one,” Dillon said.
Despite early success at the ticket office, Dillon is cautious about committing to making the opening round concept an annual affair for NSW and Queensland clubs.
“We want to see how it goes,” Dillon said. “We need to look at venue availability and there’s a whole host of things that go into doing our fixture.
“Anywhere where we can get content around the country, we’re going to continue to look at that and explore different opportunities as they arise.”

​

The first step of Swans’ 40-year journey from outhouse to penthouse​

Filling Giants Stadium​

Spearheaded by star captain Toby Greene

4

Toby Greene

Age

30

Ht

182cm

Wt

85kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

22.7

5star

K

12.5

5star

HB

10.2

5star

M

4.8

5star

T

3.0

5star

G

1.2

4star

D

17.5

4star

K

9.5

4star

HB

8.0

4star

M

4.8

4star

T

1.0

2star

G

2.3

5star

D

26.6

5star

K

12.4

5star

HB

14.2

5star

M

4.8

5star

T

3.6

5star

G

0.0

1star

, GWS came within a point of reaching the grand final in a thrilling preliminary final against Collingwood last year.

The club also set a new membership record of 33,036, backed by often innovative social media content, but still often struggles to fill home games in Sydney. Dillon believes that the future remains bright for the Giants.
“On Saturday night, there’s over 20,000 [tickets sold], the Giants will basically sell out the three games they play in Canberra and their game against the Swans when they host the home derby will again be another close-to-sellout at Giants Stadium so almost half their games are at absolute capacity,” Dillon said.

Giants’ captain]Toby Greenewill renew acquaintances with Collingwood on Saturday after a one-point defeat in last year’s Preliminary Final
“What we’ve got to do is work with the Giants on the remaining six home games that they have, and it’s fixturing, it’s marketing. They play an amazing brand of football, as they showed last year. So I think it’s a whole range of ingredients coming together.
“I’m really confident that the crowds at the Giants will continue to grow, you know, they’re only 12 years old as well and you sort of forget that. It’s a generational investment up there and their crowds on a Sydney scale are still pretty strong and I think they’ll get they’ll continue to get stronger.”

Driving community growth in Sydney​

Last month Dillon announced the AFL’s ambitious plans to invest $1 billion of funding to drive to a million participants in the game across Australia by 2033.
Given Sydney’s lack of green space and shortage of AFL-ready ovals, how does he propose to continue to increase community participation in an increasingly crowded city?
“One of the things that we have identified is that to continue to grow our participation, there’s got to be different ways to play the game,” Dillon said.
“So we’re looking at alternative offerings, we’ve had AFL nines [a shorter, non-contact form of the game] and we’re going to continue to grow that, and we’re going to look at programs for juniors which are a bridge between Auskick and community football.“

 

[threenewpadlocks]

The thrust of your post is spot on, but I clicked on the link you shared to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. These were the stories on the site that you shared that related to the NRL double-header:

• National Rugby League of Australia plays games at Allegiant Stadium | Sports (reviewjournal.com)
• National Rugby League to open season at Allegiant Stadium | Sports (reviewjournal.com)
• NASCAR weekend, Dave Matthews Band, ‘Across the Tracks’ this week in Las Vegas | Entertainment (reviewjournal.com)

The link had the headline "Top 10 things to do in Las Vegas this week", and I should note that NRL was below Brian Setzer but above Irish Whiskey day. Make of that what you will.

Appologies, I missed that article (at least reporting on the game after the fact)

The fact that the local paper didn't add anything to the article that wasn't just repurposed online information though is notable. The local paper didn't bother to actually send anyone to the games to report on or conduct interviews, even as a human interest story.

Compare to the NHL pre-season games here, or the MLB games. Of course more locals went as a resulr of global US dominance, but it also left a far greater impression in terms of local media in that there was genuine local sports journalists covering those games.

 

[PenrithGWS]

I thought the NRL in Vegas was great.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

Guess they have to alter the messaging and get better awareness. 2 articles written by local journalists seem to enjoyed it also many fans who attended so is appealing just needs to be conveyed better. Nrl should do any thing they can get Kelce brother involved they have immense following and have connection through Jordan Malatia.

NRL are lucky that Fiji Airlines who sponsored it looked after them for airfares and Resort world hotel which significantly reduced their costs.

The problem I see is that you lose all momentum as soon as the game is over then have to wait 12 months until building it up again. People move on.
It’s not like American sports who ride on the back of American’s domination of world culture which is constant so atleast keeps their sport in the rest of the worlds consciousness.
It’s more like trying to grow hurling on the back of playing one day overseas every 12 months

 

[2 eazy]

If you think that merely "altered messaging" will convince hundreds of thousands of people to care for a sport that they've never heard of and with no organic presence then I have some stuff I want to sell to you.

They advertised in NFL broadcasts, with billboards, and standard advertising in lV and New York etc. Unless they start paying millions more for advertising, not much more can be done. There's no magic bullet here, surely.

"Local journalists" were just more Murdoch associated bodies ie NY post and the Fox Sports website.

The actual Las Vegas local newspaper sports sections covered local high school softball but not the NRL game. Funny about that.

All of the Americans interviewed either had an existing involvement in the Rugby League/Union community, or were from a very small minority of being hyper-aware hyper-passionate NFL Raiders Fans (ie existing season ticket holders). Both groups of fans by their nature in the US have natural ceilings to their fandom and you're not going to get hundreds of thousands of fans with those two groups.

And of course the sponsorship was valuable. They had it locked down early and the event would be a non-starter if they didn't have it. There's no guarantee the sponsorship will continue, so surely this idea of it being an "investment" is ridiculous because it's dependant on such sponsorship. Say fewer Australians travel next year - what incentive is there for travel sponsorship for the 3rd year?

I'm not sure paying US athletes is worth the money involved. Why would Kelce etc have any interest in the sport? And why would Malatia's statements as a decent player in a non-prominent position in a city on the other side of the country make any difference? It's like if Hayden Young tried to get me to go to the Darts in Wollongong because he grew up playing the sport or something. It wouldn't register at all.

First of Jesse Merrick and Cam Inman both not affiliated with new Corp loved the match. Furthermore if you listended to Kelce podcast they acknowledge they interested in want to see a game his teamate once played. Also I doubt NRL announced a 5 year plan without having sponsors on board for the those years. YouTube videos of locals getting interviewed who wanted came curiosity and really enjoyed it which not that surprising since its draws many parralells to American Football. The best time to plant a tree was 15 years ago second best time is today. I'm not saying it's gonna work however I not gonna judge it off one year.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Jesse Merrick and Cam Inman

Neither who were tasked by their employers to cover the match, so all they did was write a few tweets or engage with the Australian media. Inman was the 49ers journo on the Jarryd Hayne beat back in the day, so he knew what the sport was - it wasn't representative of this initiative itself. He did some work for Australian clients, but not US ones.

Admittedly Merrick did reference the game as part of his sports news broadcasting but it hardly made a dent - all of them were promotional attempts before the game, and there was no follow up of the result itself, which shows that there was no effort by these bodies to actually put any effort into covering the event itself (as opposed to the NRL effort to push out its matches and fan fest etc. onto the local media).

Search

KSNV NBC Las Vegas covers news, sports, weather and traffic for the Las Vegas, Nevada area including Paradise, Spring Valley, Henderson, North Las Vegas, Indian Springs, Sloan, Searchlight, Laughlin and Nellis AFB.

news3lv.com

Furthermore if you listended to Kelce podcast they acknowledge they interested in want to see a game his teamate once played.

Which led to what - not actually going to the game? What value is there in a random thought bubble in one of the millions of US-based sports podcasts that have a fractured audience and pumps out hours of content a week in which they'd be also having hundreds of thought bubbles?

A far more popular US sports podcaster, Pat McAfee (a former punter), has actually spend significant time on his far-more-popular US podcast talking about AFL, having Mason Cox onto the show, his interest in the sport spreading over several years and plenty of episodes. He's reacted to AFL playing that one week in American lockdown, the quality of the punting, etc. It's basically not led a dent to there being any popularity of the sport in America. Proving like things like this don't even matter.

Also I doubt NRL announced a 5 year plan

Or they signed a five-year deal to get cheaper rent for the stadium. Who knows what other out clauses both that contract and the sponsor's contract has. I can't imagine Fiji Airways wanting to cover millions in business class costs if only (say) 10,000 Australians travel to the event, rather than 15,000, for a given year in the future. I also can't imagine the NRL wanting to lose $10 million over a five-year period even if the economics and travel of this event remains identical for the next 4 iterations.

I'm not saying it's gonna work however I not gonna judge it off one year.

But this event hit the bottom line by $2 million. Even if they had sold 20,000 more tickets at $10 a pop to sell out the stadium would have only dented $200,000 into the $2 million loss. There's basically no wriggle room to make the event more popular to Americans, which the TV ratings and other metrics such as social media suggest was barely a dent, without spending more millions on marketing costs.

Keep in mind that they got a lot of positive Australian media coverage because they turned it into a junket by paying for many journalists to go over there for a free trip. That would have also cost them tens of thousands of dollars. So either they save money by cutting costs (by flying fewer people over) but don't get the associated positive media coverage, or they have a natural ceiling with how much revenue they generate. This positive Australian media coverage in turn encouraged the very Austrailans receiving it to fly over there.

YouTube videos of locals getting interviewed who wanted came curiosity and really enjoyed it which not that surprising since its draws many parralells to American Football

But what's the point of that? Can you base a long-term strategy on that? Logically it's not worth the cost to fly over dozens of players and rent out a stadium costing hundreds of thousands just because a few Americans found it interesting.

I can equally point to examples of Americans becoming familiar with the AFL in a variety of manner, such as finding the game in 2020 lockdowns. Doesn't mean it's worth anything.

The best time to plant a tree

And lastly, even if the tree sprouts, eventually, what actual value is that to the NRL? Even if some sort of established fanbase for the NRL is generated as a result of this venture - which I clearly don't believe - what value is there at games being played in the middle of the night? Standard Thursday, Friday and Saturday night matches - which take up a fair majority of NRL games - begin at times like 4am in America. Even if you could get an American fan into the game, they're not going to be monetised for content beginning at 4am in the same way that they would be for content beginning in prime time. They might be interested in the sport - hell even desire to fly themselves to a future Las Vegas game the following year - but they're still going to be worth nothing to the NRL as a fan because instead of watching or gambling on the sport they'll be fast asleep at 4am like any normal human being is.

 

[The Educator]

Geez those american ratings are devastating for the NRL

Whatever sugar hit they got from flying half the journalists and editors in NSW and QLD to Vegas this year is not going to go close to making up for the losses over the next five years.

Comical

 

[Rob]

Dillon should stay out of comparing the AFL to other leagues. Just hold the line of controlling what they can control, and let other codes look after themselves.
If the AFL started to do things in response to other codes, IMO it would be taking its eye off the ball. Just do whatever is in the interests of the AFL.

 

[Teen Wolf]

Dillon should stay out of comparing the AFL to other leagues. Just hold the line of controlling what they can control, and let other codes look after themselves.
If the AFL started to do things in response to other codes, IMO it would be taking its eye off the ball. Just do whatever is in the interests of the AFL.

...he was asked about another sport, and gave a generic response. Nothing wrong with this:

Asked about the well-documented aim of Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V'Landy to take the top spot, Dillon was resolute. "What we focus on, honestly, is our sport and what we do - and by any measure, we're the No.1 sport," he said. "What we're focused on is just getting our game to as many people as possible."