The second season of the NRL playing regular season games in Las Vegas will build on the back of year one, taking the game of Rugby League to the United States and sparking a Rugby League revolution in the country as they embrace the Greatest Game Of All!!!
Except….thats not really the case.
In typical Rugby League style the games administrators, backed up by media hacks who have been given free tickets to the junket, have all made these Las Vegas games out to be something they are not.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for people to go over and have a bit of fun while going to see their footy teams play in an overseas location. It’s a bit of fun, and sport should be fun.
Lets no pretend it goes any deeper than that though. Even accounting for the ridiculously shallow “NRL Combine” that gets talked about, or an article about some park football level “Rugby” player in the United States who might consider having a training session with a lower grade Australian club, nothing is being done in the United States by the NRL to ACTUALLY grow the game of Rugby League there.
The fact that the NRL’s “Round Zero” games are played in Las Vegas shows that there is nothing underpinning the concept. There is no follow up through the year. To Las Vegas locals, this game is just one of HUNDREDS of random events that get held in the city of sin each year.
The NRL could take a series of games like this to a smaller market where the game could actually make an impact and cut through all the local noise. They could fun local Rugby League development, profile coaching clinics, and try to plant the seeds of a Rugby League competition in a place where they are not fighting against other giant sporting competitions who are going to dominate the sports cycle.
There are places you could do that, but it’s all very unsexy. It’s not Vegas, it’s not all the pretty photos and footage you can get out of the gambling capital, and it wouldn’t resonate as well back in Australia.
How many media hacks would take a free trip to Salt Lake City in Utah for NRL games? How many would rather report in the local Rugby League scene there rather than hitting the casinos and continuing their alcoholism in a new place?
Im not against the NRL games in Las Vegas, as I said earlier, it’s a bit of fun. Lets not pretend its more than that though, or that it has some lasting legacy.
Every year is like the first time the games been there. We turn up, play games, and leave until next year. Thats it. Thats all that happens.
