{"id":522846,"date":"2026-03-06T16:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/522846\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T16:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:31:15","slug":"nrls-vegas-round-goes-off-broadway-according-us-tv-ratings-analyst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/522846\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL\u2019s Vegas round goes off-Broadway, according US TV ratings analyst"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been a lot of recent chest-thumping about the NRL\u2019s<\/a> venture into Las Vegas, with TV figures suggesting viewership was up by seven per cent on last year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

In a recent article on the NRL website, there was some loud gloating about the Vegas round, saying the \u201cNRL\u2019s global expansion continues to gather pace\u201d.<\/p>\n

And there is no doubt that the recent games in the US were well watched in Australia, however, the TV figures were based on local data, with little said about the US figures.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

Behind the scenes before the games in Vegas, it was quietly reported that the NRL double-header and the Super League match had been dumped from the main US channel on Fox Sports and demoted to the pay-TV channel of Fox Sports 2.<\/p>\n

College basketball was given the priority on Fox Sports 1 and also the network\u2019s free-to-air channel.<\/p>\n

That relegation, according to US sports TV analyst Manny Soloway, has been costly for the NRL in the US market.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia\u2019s National Rugby League is trying to gain interest in the United States market,\u201d Soloway, who calls himself the \u2018SportsOnTVguy\u2019, said on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, they had a game on Fox from Las Vegas that averaged 370,000 viewers. This year, they had three games on Fox Sports 2 that averaged miserable viewership (12K, 6K, 2K).\u201d Ouch!<\/p>\n

The numbers have been sourced from Nielsen Media Research and, to state the obvious, have not been well publicised in Australia.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Rugby League Commission chair Peter V\u2019landys has been poking the AFL and making many claims about the NRL\u2019s pioneering ways.<\/p>\n

Lost among many of his claims is that the AFL used to play games for premiership points overseas, with AFL\u2019s China game coming to an abrupt end when COVID hit.<\/p>\n

V\u2019landys did however (again quietly) admit to the SMH<\/a> that NRL (as a football code) would take a lot longer to catch on in the US \u201cthan we thought it would\u201d.<\/p>\n

Betting markets in the US also do not have much interest in the NRL.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a different system in Australia where we charge for the use of our product, and the sports over here don\u2019t,\u201d told the SMH ahead of the Vegas round<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the bookmakers are a bit frightened of us introducing a new model.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same article, an American NRL fan in Vegas said he didn\u2019t know a \u201csingle person\u201d who knew anything about the sport and believed that would not change unless it got free-to-air coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Otherwise) nobody\u2019s going to watch it,\u201d he said .. somewhat prophetically.<\/p>\n

NRL CEO Andrew Abdo called this year\u2019s NRL\u2019s Vegas round \u201ca takeover\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve loved the integration, rugby league coming together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Super League fans have been fantastic with their signing, then the NRL fans. The best part for me is seeing the community coming together and the takeover.<\/p>\n

\u201cLas Vegas is the sport and entertainment capital of America, so to showcase our game has been fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the question remains, are Americans really turning on, or is this just a short-term gimmick?<\/p>\n

In 2024, an average of just 61,000 people watched Manly\u2019s win against South Sydney and only 44,000 watched the Sydney Roosters\u2019 clash with Brisbane.<\/p>\n

By comparison, the program on Fox Sports 1 leading into the NRL matches \u2014 a college basketball game between Xavier and Georgetown \u2014 drew 162,000 viewers that year.<\/p>\n

That college basketball went into overtime, which pushed the start of the NRL onto the secondary channel, but over 100,000 viewers turned off once the main channel switched over to the NRL.<\/p>\n

As for the AFL\u2019s season-opener on Seven on Thursday night, that got off to a record-breaking start, averaging a whopping 780k across Seven and 7plus Sport.<\/p>\n

The number is the highest opening round audience since the AFL\u2019s Open Round concept was introduced three years ago, and the number beat every primetime game from the regular 2025 season.<\/p>\n

The TTL audience was 20 per cent up on last year\u2019s season-opener, and 7plus delivered its highest regular season AFL streaming audience ever, averaging 131k (the first time a regular season game has averaged over 100k on BVOD – Broadcast Video on Demand).<\/p>\n

The Allegiant Stadium triple-header TV numbers (via NRL) <\/p>\n

– Knights v Cowboys fixture was the second-most watched exclusive Fox Sports\/Kayo match of all time, behind only the 2024 Vegas opener<\/p>\n

– It was the highest-ever audience on Fox Sports\/Kayo for both Newcastle and North Queensland<\/p>\n

– The Bulldogs v Dragons game was the most-watched match of all time (including finals) between the two sides<\/p>\n

– It was the fourth most-watched Round 1 fixture of all time<\/p>\n

– It was the most-watched regular season fixture featuring the Bulldogs and the second-most watched Dragons regular season fixture of all time<\/p>\n

– The Super League fixture between Leeds and Hull KR was the most-watched Super League fixture on Fox Sports\/Kayo of all time<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Craig Bellamy quickly hoses down viral chatter about skipper<\/p>\n

2 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Chaos strikes Nathan Cleary home on eve of blockbuster clash<\/p>\n

1 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There has been a lot of recent chest-thumping about the NRL\u2019s venture into Las Vegas, with TV figures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,1625,761,762,158,3863,588,85],"class_list":["post-522846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-lifestyle","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sponsored-content","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522846","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=522846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}