East, West, Centre: The bold plan to expand the game

The NRL's historic season opening double-header at Allegiant Stadium may be just the beginning of a bold expansion plan that could also see NRLW and Super League played in the US.

With the game boasting unprecedented financial strength after generating a record $701m revenue and $58m profit in 2023, ARLC chairman Peter V’landys and NRL CEO Andrew Abdo declared their ambition for further growth.

“Where do we go in the future,” Abdo told reporters after the ARLC AGM. “It’s really simple – West, East and in the Centre.”

West is America, where the NRL will become the first Australian sporting competition to play a premiership match when South Sydney meet Manly and Sydney Roosters taken on Brisbane at Allegiant Stadium on March 3 (AEST).

East is the Pacific, where the NRL is investing at both the elite level with the end-of-season Pacific Cup and in grassroots through development programs.

Why wouldn't you take a women's game to America

Peter V'landys

The Centre is the game’s traditional base, which the NRL is planning to expand in coming seasons with the introduction of new teams while investing $420m in grassroots over the next five years.

“There's been a lot of talk about the West, and this is the most exciting, we've seen our fan base in the start of any season,” Abdo said.

“The move to America and the move to taking an existing product to the world's biggest sports market is very strategic. It's very deliberate and it's all about revenues.

“The move East is about the bottom of the pyramid. We have a unique opportunity to make rugby league the sport and a language of the Pacific, literally to change people's lives; to create employment, to use rugby league as a tool to get better educational outcomes and better social outcomes.

“And, of course, to increase our fan base and to give rugby league content, which we know is very popular in that region, an opportunity to really grow and develop talent.

“The Pacific strategy and the US strategy are exciting expansion opportunities [but] they are very different.

"Then in the Centre, the Commission will not take their eye off the ball on the opportunities with us right here, right now – expansion of the men’s competition, expansion of the women’s competition, re-thinking and revitalising how we invest into grass roots.”

NRLW in Vegas

While the NRL is committed to taking two Telstra Premiership matches to Las Vegas for the next five seasons, V’landys said he was already looking at other opportunities for the code.

Sydney Roosters supremo Nick Politis has suggested playing an NRLW match in the United States, as well as the NRL matches, and V’landys said Super League teams may also be invited in the future.

“Nick said ‘you’ve got a unique situation with the women’s game. Why wouldn't you take a women's game to America’,” V’landys said.

“That would take our game to another to another level, especially considering how good they are.

“The other one that we're going to look at is Super League itself, because our research has shown that the biggest travellers are English.

“To take a Super League game there, as well, would generate a lot more people coming from England to the US.”

Biggest ever TV audience

A visit to media giants Amazon and Facebook when V’landys and Abdo were looking to negotiate the most recent broadcast deal convinced that the best way to grow revenue was to increase the NRL’s fan-base beyond Australia.

Another trip to the US, as a guest of president Joe Biden, left V’landys believing that the game was missing out on potential revenue from the Watch NRL app.  

A video narrated by Russell Crowe that explains the rules of rugby league to NFL fans and a deal to broadcast the season opening double-header to a potential 70 million US audience on Fox 1 are first steps.

“You’ve got to have a long-term vision and that's why we said five years,” V’landys said.

“An important element of that vision, however, is the support of our partner, Fox, because we need to be on Fox 1 in America, and for the first time ever, through the great support of Lachlan Murdoch, we are on Fox 1 for both games.

“I think they've taken off some American sport to put us on, so that's how important it is to them.

“It's the biggest audience that we're ever going to show our game to, but it can't stop there. We need to be on Fox 1 every week in order to be able to promote it and we're working very hard with Fox in America to be able to achieve that.

"Another person I want to thank significantly is Russell Crowe. He's done one of the best promotional videos in explaining our game, and last night he tweeted it out.

"He's got 2.9 million followers, and through the NRL app and through NRL.com, it's now had a million views."

Best kept secret in America

It is also hoped that more overseas fans will subscribe to Watch NRL, where they can watch every match as well as league shows broadcast on Fox Sports, while the NRL is seeking to take advantage of the thriving US sports wagering market.

“When I was over at the White House, a senior business figure in New York, who was an Australian that was looking after $600 billion in assets, wanted to meet with me because, he said, I had saved him,” V’landys said.

“I said, ‘what do you mean I saved you?’ He said that during COVID, when they were contained in their homes, it was Watch NRL that saved him, because of his mental situation, by being able to watch NRL games.

“He said ‘it's the best kept secret in America because no-one knows about Watch NRL. There's only 3000 subscriptions in America on Watch NRL but there’s hundreds of thousands of Australians in America that we can market Watch NRL to.

“Even if we just got a small percentage of them, that's $25 million extra revenue, but we're aiming much higher than that, naturally.”

Ready-made UK market

V’landys said that there were only a similar number of Watch NRL subscribers in Britain so that was another market with potential for the NRL.

With no additional costs, each new NRL Watch subscription is profit for the game.

“We already have Super League so you've got a ready-made market and again there’s hardly a subscription sold in England,” he said.

“We are going to attack that market as well and every dollar, because from an accounting point of view, it's all addition. There's no expense.

“We've already paid the players, we've already paid for the production, we've already paid for everything so it's a matter of whatever revenue you get, you get it clear.

"It also gives us, in my view, a real niche when we go to do the next broadcasting rights because not only do you have the domestic, which is really not that big a market, but you're gonna have international, which will be a much bigger market."