The Las Vegas Thread

[Dogs Of War]

What bothers me is that the AFL will probably get more exposure to their game this year at the Melbourne NFL game because they'll get famous athletes or even the NFL itself posting about kicking a sherrin on the field.

We can't be marketing this Vegas thing like it's 1998. The NRL must find ways, aka pay for, famous people to post about it. Even non-sporting athletes, get streamers like iShowspeed at the game.

They won't. Best AFL will do is slap an AFL jersey on someone and post it on their insta feed. It's not for an American audience.

 

[i0Nic]

As an aside, if the NRL made $2m profit on it like they say, they should pump that money back into the event to make it bigger. Put $1m of that on activating very high profile individuals to be at the game and lead-up events posting on their own socials. Put the other $1m on getting a high profile US-based musical act to perform.

Get Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, iShowspeed, Dana White, Snoop Dogg, Post Malone... just get one of these involved and posting about it on their socials and it will generate mass attention.

 

[beave]

About to begin the journey back to Oz.

My takeaways

-If you have even a remote chance to come over for it, I highly recommend it.

- Allegiant Stadium is amazing, hopefully the Sydney folk that have come over see what a proper 60k+ stadium can provide and start pressuring your state gov to do something about that absolute bucket of shit at Homebush. It doesn't need a roof but a proper rectangular stadium where the ends are on top of the action and proper rake on the lower levels.

- IMO it needs to stay here. All the activities in LV and hotels make it an easy sell, especially when it's not exactly tourist season at the moment and there was a heap available at ridiculously low prices. I see people saying take it to Nashville etc, I don't think it needs to move.

- The SL teams and their fans were awesome to see out and about. Chatting with them at various bars about RL, their singing and what they bring to the gameday experience was top notch, i've now got a SL team to follow (even though they got towelled up). They need to be part of this experience, I get there are teams with small fan bases you wouldn't consider but the bigger ones need to be included.

- There was most defs americans in the house, talking to them at the merch lines and food lines some had aussies ties (lived in oz previously, aussie mates taking them) whilst a few I spoke to had never been before or were returning fans and they all seemed to love it. I don't think the plan is to become an overnight success and convert the country to the sport, but to have an event like this that drags a heap of people into the city (the week leading up there was an abundance of jerseys out and about) and create some interest for the locals to come along and get amongst it.

I think both they NRL and SL should be commended for putting this on, has been an awesome week even though my team is a complete shit fight.

 

[Gobsmacked]

It bugs me every time I hear about this " problem" of fans leaving early.. yeah and some rock up late. I myself would only watch 2 games.
But what exactly is the problem? Some empty seats? There's empty seats at magic round, so what?

I'm just so tired of hearing people react to a made up problem.

 

[i0Nic]

It bugs me every time I hear about this " problem" of fans leaving early.. yeah and some rock up late. I myself would only watch 2 games.
But what exactly is the problem? Some empty seats? There's empty seats at magic round, so what?

I'm just so tired of hearing people react to a made up problem.

I agree it's not as big of a problem as people make out, however optically it doesn't look the best for casual viewers tuning in. The NRL don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater to fix it, but like I mentioned they could change up the format a bit to make it more likely for fans to want to stay in the stadium. 3 games back to back to back is a bit much for anyone, but throw in an 'Free Aussie bbq on the field, meet your favourite players, sign autographs' and a big musical act to break up the games will do the job to keep people engaged and in the stadium

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

Maybe change the leaving and returning policy. I seen a video of an American that went and watched the SL game and left. He thought it was 1 game. He realized not long later but he would have to buy new tickets. Maybe they should change it so you can enter and leave as you please all day.

 

[marlins2.0]

Two day event, two games per day.
A super league and an NRL.

 

[i0Nic]

Two day event, two games per day.
A super league and an NRL.

Will the the fans of the other two games go to the other day? Probably only a portion of them, let's say 20%. I reckon keep it as is, the problem of crowd leaving is not a big enough problem to change the format and make it 2 days and risk having 25k there only for each day.

 

[Wb1234]

It bugs me every time I hear about this " problem" of fans leaving early.. yeah and some rock up late. I myself would only watch 2 games.
But what exactly is the problem? Some empty seats? There's empty seats at magic round, so what?

I'm just so tired of hearing people react to a made up problem.

Should chain people to their seats so they can’t leave

 

[jasonstevenswedgie]

Maybe change the leaving and returning policy. I seen a video of an American that went and watched the SL game and left. He thought it was 1 game. He realized not long later but he would have to buy new tickets. Maybe they should change it so you can enter and leave as you please all day.

the league have tried, the stadium doest do passes

 

[i0Nic]

Another problem I can see is the branding of it called rugby league Las Vegas. It should be called NRL Las Vegas. We want to drive people to follow and search NRL.

This is where NRL investing in super league and rebranding it as NRL will be beneficial for both leagues.

We don't want to be giving Rugby Union a free kick in exposure

 

[RedVee]

Another problem I can see is the branding of it called rugby league Las Vegas. It should be called NRL Las Vegas. We want to drive people to follow and search NRL.

This is where NRL investing in super league and rebranding it as NRL will be beneficial for both leagues.

We don't want to be giving Rugby Union a free kick in exposure

Yes my mate in Arizona was confused by the TV schedule starting with Super League and then becoming National Rugby League for the next games.

 

[Gobsmacked]

If we could buy into SL and rebrand it to NRL would be great, referring to them as Northern and Southern leagues.
Once we're both on the same page, we can move on with renaming the game to Rugby 13's.

"League "is a serious issues for the sport moving forward, people in the US or anyone else that's interested could end up with multiple Rugby league results in their curiosity which will all be actually Union.
The word " league" has it's own meaning to most people not familiar with our sport, which always references the difference leagues within a sport.

I really hope we can do something about these branding issues.

 

[kurt faulk]

If we could buy into SL and rebrand it to NRL would be great, referring to them as Northern and Southern leagues.
Once we're both on the same page, we can move on with renaming the game to Rugby 13's.

"League "is a serious issues for the sport moving forward, people in the US or anyone else that's interested could end up with multiple Rugby league results in their curiosity which will all be actually Union.
The word " league" has it's own meaning to most people not familiar with our sport, which always references the difference leagues within a sport.

I really hope we can do something about these branding issues.

There is no branding issue. It's the NRL. Very simple.

The Super league can think of it's own brand.

.

 

[Mother Nature's Son]

Once we're both on the same page, we can move on with renaming the game to Rugby 13's.

Sooner we get rid of any reference to `rugby` the better. It will always cause confusion no matter what you tack on after it.

 

[Bukowski]

I agree it's not as big of a problem as people make out, however optically it doesn't look the best for casual viewers tuning in. The NRL don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater to fix it, but like I mentioned they could change up the format a bit to make it more likely for fans to want to stay in the stadium. 3 games back to back to back is a bit much for anyone, but throw in an 'Free Aussie bbq on the field, meet your favourite players, sign autographs' and a big musical act to break up the games will do the job to keep people engaged and in the stadium

That would make it a longer day though. I'd go from maybe staying for all three to definitely leaving early.

 

[i0Nic]

I just think we gotta go balls deep on NRL like the NFL has gone balls deep on that. Noone says 'gridiron' or 'american football'.

Who cares then if people think NRL is a form of Rugby or Rugby League etc we don't need to change the name of the sport.

The key takeaway we want people to have is this: NRL is the biggest and best rugby competition on the planet.

 

[i0Nic]

That would make it a longer day though. I'd go from maybe staying for all three to definitely leaving early.

It does make it longer, maybe 45mins to 1hr longer, but it breaks up the day and doesn't feel like you're just sitting in the stadium watching football games.

 

[i0Nic]

I just think we gotta go balls deep on NRL like the NFL has gone balls deep on that. Noone says 'gridiron' or 'american football'.

Who cares then if people think NRL is a form of Rugby or Rugby League etc we don't need to change the name of the sport.

The key takeaway we want people to have is this: NRL is the biggest and best rugby competition on the planet.

Also I think it's overblown that here in Australia we're obsessed about the branding of rugby union vs rugby league - why do we want to effectively cede the name Rugby to union? I prefer how it works in the UK, leaguies say 'Rugby', they own it. We get benefits of being known as a rugby code.

We just need to be the biggest and best rugby competition. It draws worldwide union attention to the NRL.

 

[Wb1234]

Sooner we get rid of any reference to `rugby` the better. It will always cause confusion no matter what you tack on after it.

So hull fc change their date of incorporation to 1895 ?

Do we change the name of the game to NL