I guess I'm one of those forum dopes that don't think it's possible, but I'm actually going to present data as to why.
The NRL gets direct revenue of about 2.5% of all betting turnover on the sport like in Australia. Laws say that fees have to be paid to the NRL and the NRL can dictate the nature of such fees (Bookmaker grumbling about increased fees to increase this revenue for the NRL has been the subject of a dozen if not more major newspaper articles over recent years). But that's not a requriement in America, legally, though the NRL can claim other revenue sources such as selling data feeds, live scores, streaming, and other product like news content to bookmakers. So lets revise this figure down to NRL getting 1% of all turnover. I think this is a pie in the sky estimation given that margins on turnover are only about 7% and they're not going to give up 14% of all trading profit before operating expenditure, but lets go with it for the sake of argument.
Current US legal sports betting turnover is about $120 billion annually. In 2030 it's projected to be about $300 billion as a high-end estimate.
So $6.6 million USD ($10 million Australian) of revenue multiplying by 100 (1%of turnover to revenue) logically means USD $666 million of turnover for the NRL in 2030 is required to get to exactly AUD $10 million of revenue. Which is 0.22% of all US sports betting turnover (the $300 billion) for 2030.
NRL matches are played in the middle of the night in America. This will not happen. The NRL will never get 0.22% of all sports betting turnover at any stage in my lifetime or yours. For example, Golf, which includes the Masters etc. in America, gets less than about 1.5% of all turnover in America. Tennis only gets a couple of percent, despite there being more than hundreds of times the amount of global fixtures as there are NRL games, of which many are played in America like the US open (duh) and otherwise not in the middle of the night in America. Yet will the NRL get 5 or 10% of the total turnover of Tennis in America? Even Soccer - soccer - which gets more sports betting turnover than all other sports combined, outside of the USA - gets less than 5% of all sports betting turnover in the US. This is to highlight the fact the fact of the dominance of the big 3 sports in America among the five major leagues (College Football and Basketball, and those two pro sports and Baseball). If sports that are clearly 100x more popular in America (such as Soccer, when you combine all viewership hours of soccer among all broadcasts in America around the world) and have 100x the betting product in America (just the amount of games that middle-of-the-night bettors can bet on, why would an American bet on the one Friday morning NRL game when there's 50 soccer games being played at the same time somewhere in the world, even if they are choosing to bet in the middle of the night) can only get a couple of percent of the total turnover market, what chance does NRL have to get anything that's above 0.1% or whatever?
I'm going to be attacked like I was last time by you when I posted here about gambling (something I know about) saying how can I be an expert and V'landys knows all about it so we should trust him, like what I'm quoting you. I guess I'm just a forum dope after all.
I think people understand this through intuition which is why they're crticising V'landys, they just haven't dealt with the industry in general before so don't know how to run through the numbers properly.
I enjoyed watching Vegas, I think it showed good ambition. I think it can be a long-term profitable event with a combination of sponsorship, rebates, travelling supporters and a small minority of gambling-related revenue (that gets nowhere near tens of millions per year). But I can't see it growing more than a slightly-above-breakeven event. It's fine. It's a cool thing to do and it'll make some small money for the NRL which is nice. But lets live in the real world!
Here are my data sources:
US turnover amounts:
US turnover growth predictions as more states legalise:
The factors that could drive ongoing growth in the US sports betting market, and whether products or new markets will play decisive roles.
igamingbusiness.com
NRL makes $50 million in gambling in Australia:
The NRL’s wild proposal to start the 2024 season with a double-header in Las Vegas has thrown up many questions. The Herald grilled ARLC chair Peter V’landys on the how, why ... and how much.
www.smh.com.au
We can deduce that this is about 2.5% of all turnover by looking at total sports betting turnover by official government statistics and using about 20% of all Australian sports betting turnover is on NRL (NBA is number 1 in case anyone was curious with about 30%):
www.qgso.qld.gov.au
Colorado publishes the best data among all US states about breaking it down sport-by-sport and it was one of the earlier sports to legalise so it represents a more mature US gambling market. Its 1% or whatever of the US population is a good sample of average America:
