I'm not against the Las Vegas season opener, and it gets more headlines than the AFL Round 1 as a result.
But the whole thing's basically an exercise in hype, a bit of a junket, and money changing hands for the potential of influence that might be cashed in sometime in the future.
Like our deal that locked us into games at Darwin, it didn't really matter how many people went or turned up at the end of the day to meet the contract/s that have been signed.
Think it was PV that was interviewed couple days back
Said last year was a loss (costs shit loads to organise this, but they need to give it the 5 yrs to be serious about growing the game there , mainly on pay tv). You can basically watch 3 NRL games live to one NFL match
This year they expect to break even, maybe even get a little profit, which to me is bloody brilliant
They have set up their own NRL channel over there and subscriptions are 83% up from last year, from a low base, sure, but its heading in a good direction
Our deal to Darwin was fine, money grab in the main , but I can see some clubs taking a home game to the States (if this 5 year tenure is succesful) , the coin would dwarf what we got from Darwin
