months now, and particularly this week, the NRL has talked up its desire for world domination.
Matches have been flagged for Abu Dhabi, London, Hong Kong, Miami, and probably the top of Mount Everest if ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys can convince the Nepalese government to subsidise it.
It brings a collective eyeroll from dismissive officials and fans of rival codes, while internally at the NRL they wonder how to make it all happen.
After another successful start to the season in Las Vegas, the question is why? Why dilute or even hurt the best promotion for rugby league since Tina Turner brought her voice and enormous hair to the game?
The third year of the Vegas experiment has been the NRL’s most successful, from the hum of the fanfest at Fremont Street on Thursday night to the roar of the crowd at Allegiant Stadium on Saturday.
Sure, it’s not perfect. The NRL announced a crowd of 45,719 – 500 more than last year – but the problem is so many Hull KR and Leeds fans left the stadium before the final match between Canterbury and St George Illawarra, which the Dogs won in the final seconds of golden-point extra time.
UK fans for the past two years have come in droves, but they leave a hole when they depart early, many of them tired from getting up to watch Premier League matches first thing in the morning.
Nevertheless, the whole exercise has been another success for rugby league.
The NRL will spit out a stack of positive numbers in coming days to show just how successful it has been.
Perhaps the most interesting were on nightly news bulletins earlier in the week when it was revealed flights into Reid International Airport, Las Vegas, have crashed in the past year – including 20 per cent of international flights.
Next stop London? V’landys is pushing for an NRL fixture at Wembley as part of the code’s expanding international footprint. Picture: Getty Images
Next stop London? V’landys is pushing for an NRL fixture at Wembley as part of the code’s expanding international footprint. Pl
Australians are bucking that trend with Qantas this week announcing direct flights into Sin City.
But it’s not enough for V’landys. When I ran into him on the morning of the matches, he was hellbent on holding a game at Wembley Stadium in London this time next year. It was certainly part of his pitch to broadcasters during a series of critical meetings in Vegas in the past few days.
Of all the media heavyweights at Allegiant Stadium, the heaviest hitter was Ukrainian-born British-American billionaire Sir Len Blavatnik, who owns DAZN, which last year bought Foxtel.
He watched the games from a private suite alongside Australian billionaire James Packer.
“It’s my first time at a rugby league game,” Blavatnik told The Australian. “It’s fantastic. We’d like to do more.”
When Blavatnik was introduced to V’landys for the first time two years ago, he asked one of his minders, “What’s rugby league?”
He certainly knows now.
MEDIA ON THE MENU
On Friday night, V’landys and chief executive Andrew Abdo dined at a restaurant at Resorts World with Nine chief executive Matt Stanton, chairman Peter Tonagh, director and Dragons chair Andrew Lancaster, and streaming and broadcast boss Amanda Laing.
On Saturday afternoon, the rugby league powerbrokers met with Amazon representatives. In the Champions Club at ground level, media execs from all networks eyed each from across the horseshoe bar normally filled with Las Vegas Raiders fans and sponsors.
Having hatched NRL deals for Nine and Foxtel many times over many years, Laing is the intriguing player in these negotiations.
Speculation won’t abate about Nine wanting the rights to every NRL match, with most of them on their subscription service Stan Sport, including putting Friday night matches behind a paywall – something Nine privately denies because talks haven’t progressed that far.
Laing was on the ARL Commission but stepped down in March 2020, citing a conflict of interest heading into broadcast negotiations. She was Foxtel chief commercial officer at the time. Her resignation, though, was a shock. Some considered her a future chair who could take over from V’landys.
ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys is driving plans for London, Abu Dhabi and beyond as he chases a record-breaking broadcast deal. Picture: Jonathan Ng
ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys is driving plans for London, Abu Dhabi and beyond as he chases a record-breaking broadcast deal. Picture: Jonathan Ng
Broadcast negotiations in rugby league are brutal affairs, much like the game itself.
There’s a famous story from the early 1990s about former ARL chairman Ken Arthurson launching across the table to throttle Nine owner Kerry Packer, who had ripped up a draft contract in his face.
Channel 10 tried to snatch the rights from Nine many years later, but the deal fell through when a Nine exec spotted their Ten counterparts in the carpark at NRL headquarters. The meeting room door was locked and the parties stayed up all night to strike a deal.
Laing was in that meeting, working for Nine. She’s as just tough as V’landys at the negotiation table, according to those who have seen her in action. She’ll need to be if the game’s free-to-air broadcaster since 1993 is to remain so as speculation swirls about a strained relationship between Nine and V’landys.
The chairman believes recent negative coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald (which Nine owns) about racing governance has been about influencing broadcast talks.
“That’s what I’ve been told by some credible people,” V’landys told The Australian in an interview last week. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s what I’ve been told.
“I’m not going to deny what has been stated to me. If they’re doing that, they’re really stupid because that just makes me more determined. I will go like a bulldozer in getting the best deal for rugby league. So they’re wasting their time if they are.”
What is the best deal for rugby league? The magic figure seems to be $4bn over five years, although some have talked as much as $5bn, which sounds as likely as me leaving a roulette table at the Bellagio with money in my pocket.
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Take me there
The NRL is cognisant of the dissatisfaction from NFL and NBA viewers about having to subscribe to so many different streamers to watch their sports. Only this week, NBA legend Charles Barkley launched into the game’s bosses for slicing the pie too thinly. “It is so difficult for fans to find the games now,” he said. “We’ve done a disservice to the fans and to the game.”
The AFL was kicked in the teeth by its own fans last year for putting every Saturday match behind a paywall. V’landys reckons it has cost them 400,000 viewers a week. (The AFL says that number is “rubbish”, saying Foxtel and Kayo numbers have exploded on a Saturday night).
“We’re going to make sure that we do a deal that doesn’t hurt the fan, because everything I look at is through the lens of a fan,” V’landys said. “I’ve got to make sure that whatever broadcast deal we do, it’s not passed onto the consumer.”
To minimise the cost to the fan, V’landys is toying with the idea of allowing fans to pay for a specific rugby league on a streaming service.
Channel 7’s interest in breathing life into Monday night football is real, although its competitors wonder if it has the money to compete when talks get serious. Seven scoff at this, saying it’s hosting this year’s Rugby League World Cup for a reason.
Most media analysts reckon the status quo will remain, as it usually does. Sports and broadcasters in Australia need each other to survive. Legacy media such as Nine knows its future is in news and big-ticket sport.
DAZN in Australia needs rugby league as much as rugby league needs it.
FAN’S EYE VIEW
Blavatnik and Packer weren’t the only billionaires at the game. Bulldogs major sponsor, pub baron and 2GB owner Arthur Laundy sat in a corporate suite, in the corner, binoculars pressed to his eyes, for every minute of every match.
Now, there’s a fan. Who needs to press the flesh and do deals when there’s rugby league to watch?
Days before the match, Dragons coach Shane Flanagan enraged his own fans by declaring his team can’t win the premiership this year.
The sentence went down poorly with some within the club, but it was quickly turned into a motivational tool on the night before the game.
“Nobody expects us to win,” Flanagan told his players.
They lost 15-14 after some contentious decisions in golden point cost them the chance to cause the upset of the day. Bulldogs captain Stephen Crichton iced the winning field goal with seconds on the clock.
In the earlier matches, Leeds flogged Super League champions Hull KR 56-8 – just a week after Hull KR had beaten the Brisbane Broncos in the World Club Challenge. That’s another logistical headache the NRL needs to consider.
In the first NRL match, last year’s wooden spooners Newcastle made a statement of sorts with their 28-18 win over North Queensland. A great win for a rebuilding club.
Unlike most of us, they’ll be hoping what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas
