{"id":512316,"date":"2026-03-01T18:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T18:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512316\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T18:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T18:44:08","slug":"national-rugby-leagues-u-s-experiment-gains-traction-in-las-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512316\/","title":{"rendered":"National Rugby League&#8217;s U.S. experiment gains traction in Las Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">Australia\u2019s rugby league returned to Las Vegas on Saturday with \u201cits mission to convert Americans to this rugged brand of football drawing almost 50,000 fans to Allegiant Stadium.\u201d It is the third consecutive year the NRL played in Las Vegas, and how many locals showed up among the thousands of traveling fans from Australia and England on a day that saw three matches \u201cwas not immediately clear.\u201d However, the \u201cshowcase delivered on the entertainment stakes capped by a cliffhanger\u201d between the Canterbury Bulldogs and the St. George Illawarra Dragons. The NRL has committed until 2028 to play regular-season matches in Las Vegas as part of a \u201cstrategic plan to broaden an international audience for the sport and increase its sports betting revenue by playing Prime Time in the entertainment capital\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/national-rugby-league-las-vegas-c4b42debe439aeda985c65df5abce307\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/national-rugby-league-las-vegas-c4b42debe439aeda985c65df5abce307\">AP, 3\/1<\/a>). <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">This year\u2019s excursion to Las Vegas has been the NRL\u2019s \u201cmost successful.\u201d While it is \u201cnot perfect,\u201d the whole exercise has been \u201canother success for rugby league.\u201d Of all the media heavyweights at Allegiant Stadium, the \u201cheaviest hitter\u201d was DAZN owner Len Blavatnik. He watched the games \u201cfrom a private suite alongside Australian billionaire James Packer.\u201d Blavatnik said, \u201cIt\u2019s my first time at a rugby league game. It\u2019s fantastic. We\u2019d like to do more.\u201d On Saturday afternoon, rugby league powerbrokers \u201cmet with Amazon representatives\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/nrls-global-gamble-vegas-success-fuels-push-for-wembley-billions-in-broadcast-deals-and-world-domination\/news-story\/bc74698678ce524119c1cecbbcfbba42\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/nrls-global-gamble-vegas-success-fuels-push-for-wembley-billions-in-broadcast-deals-and-world-domination\/news-story\/bc74698678ce524119c1cecbbcfbba42\">THE AUSTRALIAN, 3\/1<\/a>). <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-events-and-attractions \">The NRL\u2019s venture here has the \u201cdistinct feel of exactly what the NFL has been doing for the past several years,\u201d taking games to England, Mexico, Germany, Spain and this year for the first time, Australia. The trip has \u201cturned into a profitable experiment,\u201d as it \u201creturned a slight profit last year and this year it\u2019s reportedly bringing in\u201d around $2M (<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/28\/sports\/national-rugby-league-venture-to-las-vegas-growing-game-plus-profit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/28\/sports\/national-rugby-league-venture-to-las-vegas-growing-game-plus-profit\/\">N.Y. POST, 2\/28<\/a>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s rugby league returned to Las Vegas on Saturday with \u201cits mission to convert Americans to this rugged&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-512316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}