Final Whistle: Why the NRL are taking their Las Vegas gamble

[Worzel]

On 02/03/2024 at 11:59, Kayakman said:

Lots since I follow the sports very closely...and I've been following this one closely.   I think the model they are using is wrong but we have been through this all before last time.  I predict its another one off.   More people are following the Grapefruit League out west than this event.  No one has even heard of it to be fair.

It’s not a one-off though is it? The NRL has committed for 5 years, this is going to grow. I’m already planning my 2025 trip. 

[Pie tries]

4 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Just to dig into that, if I may: 

1. The US is a continent, made up of 50 states. It is vast. 

2. Within those states, every minute of every prime time is, unsurprisingly, filled with top level, established sports with roots going back many generations. 

3. They are used to seeing the best athletes in the world, playing games they know and have a deep affinity with, in sports they love. 

4. Taking football, the world’s most popular game, as an example, look into how many decades and how many 10s of millions of pounds have been spent establishing a league, when they are selling it to a massive audience of people whose parents love the game. 

5. By all means we should be looking at seeing which NFL athletes we can persuade to play our game. 

6. As for impact, I would be interested if those citing those media sources today would let us know what the equivalents are on Wednesday. There is no place in the world with a shorter attention span than Las Vegas. They are as likely to follow TGG as they are to buy a tiger after watching the perma tanned resident magicians. 

7. The crowd was nothing to write home about, particularly given the thousands of leagues who flew there. 

8. These are the people who cancelled the World Cup on 3 minutes notice. They wanted a jolly, and they got a jolly, but there is no “grow the greatest game” plan. It’s a vanity project from people who have as had as hard a gig at actually selling our game as the Wigan Pie Sellers of Wigan. 

Point 7 - RL in a nutshell 

[Sports Prophet]

 

10 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

It wasn’t 45k, it was 40k. The sense I get is that it’s all “Wow! Look at the NRL! Aren’t they superhuman!” applying a far far higher standard than was applied, say to the 21 World Cup, which was put back a year on 3 minutes notice by these clowns, and which had a total marketing lower than the NRL splurged on a “crowd” for a double header which was exceeded on 3 occasions for games involving Samoa over here: with 2 of those games being in Newcastle and London and the third not involving England. The NRL have managed to take a wonderful game, with fantastically deep roots and sell it to the converted in its core market, with a vast fawning press. 

If the conclusion is “NRL marketers are super humans”, then so were the hugely maligned World Cup organisers. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between. The World Cup did fine and this did ok. Strategically, it is a massive waste of resources, and anyone who thinks there is a gap in the US sports market, when literally every hour of sports prime time has multiple choice between infinitely resourced home grown sporting codes (the Mahomes triumph was watched by figures last seen for the moon landing!) is insane. 

that you think the primary objective here was anything other than an investment into opening up a new revenue source, being the billion dollar US sports gambling market, says your opinion that this match was a “waste of resources” due to crowd sizes is both misguided and of no consequence to what the NRL were here trying to achieve.

[gingerjon]

7 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

 

that you think the primary objective here was anything other than an investment into opening up a new revenue source, being the billion dollar US sports gambling market, says your opinion that this match was a “waste of resources” due to crowd sizes is both misguided and of no consequence to what the NRL were here trying to achieve.

So, remind me again, in detail, how much money is available to the NRL via this market, and how they are now accessing this money?

Remember that this - to repeat: excellent multi day event - cost them $10m.

[Sports Prophet]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

So, remind me again, in detail, how much money is available to the NRL via this market, and how they are now accessing this money?

Remember that this - to repeat: excellent multi day event - cost them $10m.

“In detail” he says, as if I am the bloody CFO of the NRL. “In detail” he says, as if should I not be in a position to pull the NRL’s executive and financial strategy for this event out of my backside, that it somehow demonstrates this event as being unsuccessful or a waste of time/resources.

What I can tell you GJ is that there are reports US citizens wagered $120b in 2023 on sports gambling and in Dec 2023, the same population wagered $13b which generated $1.255 in gross revenue. 

How does the NRL access a share of this revenue? Through a simple licensing agreement with various sports betting agencies which can include live coverage and percentage of revenue.

How much can they earn? I don’t have that answer.

This event cost $10m you say? This may come across as an earth shattering idea, but I don’t think it takes the financially strategic mind of Branson to suggest the NRL have a plan detailed on something more than a cigarette packet with a view they will translate that investment into a positive return.

[The Rocket]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

Remember that this - to repeat: excellent multi day event - cost them $10m.

This was never ever going to cost them $10m, even before a ticket was sold I`d suggest that sponsorships and deals was going to cover a very large chunk of it.

You can add to that now the reported $3m in ticket sales, so it may well in fact end up not "costing" them a cent.

 

 

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

This was never ever going to cost them $10m

Odd that the NRL said that's how much it was going to cost them, then.

[gingerjon]

23 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

I don’t think it takes the financially strategic mind of Branson to suggest the NRL have a plan detailed on something more than a cigarette packet with a view they will translate that investment into a positive return.

Most of Branson's ventures lose spectacular amounts of money - his most valuable asset being the ability to licence the word 'Virgin' to mugs.

So that's not a bad a comparison.

[Worzel]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

So, remind me again, in detail, how much money is available to the NRL via this market, and how they are now accessing this money?

Remember that this - to repeat: excellent multi day event - cost them $10m.

Yeah I'm not sure it was even that expensive. I think the $10m was what the NRL allocated for it, assuming limited commerical offsets. But Vlandys has since said its been relatively cheap, due to ticket sales and all the additional sponsorship properties they've created to cover much of the cost.

Even without that though, they can afford to spend 2% of their annual TV revenue on a launch event if they want. $10m to them is the same as £500k to the RFL, and unlike the RFL they're hugely profitable so can afford some small risks. 

[The Rocket]

6 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Odd that the NRL said that's how much it was going to cost them, then.

Mate, yes that would have been marketing genius to say Oh, btw the way this isn`t going to cost us a cent, $10m is a much better headline without going into all the details of the actual financial breakdown.

[Sports Prophet]

2 hours ago, gingerjon said:

Odd that the NRL said that's how much it was going to cost them, then.

Odd that you could remember how much it would cost and not remember what V’landys, Abdo and co have repeatedly said for months about how they plan to make this five year plan a financial success. 

Take a break GJ, you don’t have to be one all the time.

[barnyia]

Vlandy said on nrl 360 that it didn't cost much due to sponsorship and TV rights etc. 

[Kayakman]

On 03/03/2024 at 05:12, frank said:

Surprised Kayakman making  negative comments on the Las Vegas event . Made lots of comments on here when he supported the  Wolfpack.  Maybe he is a  little bitter in the way they were treated.

Just got back...I'm not going negative at all and I wish nothing but the best for the event.....my understanding is that the crowd was about the same size as the UNLV college football games played there...good.

But what is the plan????....there isn't one.  Thats not being negative but rather just realistic.  This has nothing in the way Toronto was treated.....I'm all for RL in North America but the progress is slow my friend....like watching the maple syrup flow on a cold day.

[Kayakman]

On 03/03/2024 at 05:12, frank said:

Surprised Kayakman making  negative comments on the Las Vegas event . Made lots of comments on here when he supported the  Wolfpack.  Maybe he is a  little bitter in the way they were treated.

Just got back...I'm not going negative at all and I wish nothing but the best for the event.....my understanding is that the crowd was about the same size as the UNLV college football games played there...good.

But what is the plan????....there isn't one.  Thats not being negative but rather just realistic.  This has nothing in the way Toronto was treated.....I'm all for RL in North America but the progress is slow my friend....like watching the maple syrup flow on a cold day.

 

Sorry double post.

Edited March 5 by Kayakman

[Kayakman]

On 03/03/2024 at 05:12, frank said:

Surprised Kayakman making  negative comments on the Las Vegas event . Made lots of comments on here when he supported the  Wolfpack.  Maybe he is a  little bitter in the way they were treated.

Just got back...I'm not going negative at all and I wish nothing but the best for the event.....my understanding is that the crowd was about the same size as the UNLV college football games played there...good.

But what is the plan????....there isn't one.  Thats not being negative but rather just realistic.  This has nothing in the way Toronto was treated.....I'm all for RL in North America but the progress is slow my friend....like watching the maple syrup flow on a cold day.

[Kayakman]

On 03/03/2024 at 10:43, Worzel said:

It’s not a one-off though is it? The NRL has committed for 5 years, this is going to grow. I’m already planning my 2025 trip. 

Lets hope it works out.

[Kayakman]

On 02/03/2024 at 06:56, Click said:

How much blanket coverage do you expect to see, as a Canadian, living in Canada for an Australian event taking place in Vegas?

Well with the way things are with the world today...quite a bit.

[Kayakman]

On 02/03/2024 at 15:05, BladeHearts said:

Covered on Fox and Friends this morning.

 

A show of quackery for the quacked...we gotta do better.

[Kayakman]

On 02/03/2024 at 20:22, Click said:

He's in Canada, and also doesn't understand the differences between local Fox broadcasts and Fox News as a whole.

Sort of like the fine differences with yogurt?  Such a range of flavours, what to choose...so troubling this decision.

Yogurt is yogurt.

[gingerjon]

33 minutes ago, Kayakman said:

Yogurt is yogurt.

Except when it's yoghurt.

[Kayakman]

4 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Except when it's yoghurt.

Or if its a  yurt...I like yurts...very fashionable but not the climate control of a tee pee.

[Click]

1 minute ago, Kayakman said:

Or if its a  yurt...I like yurts...very fashionable but not the climate control of a tee pee.

Are you OK?

[Kayakman]

1 minute ago, Click said:

Are you OK?

Perfectly fine...and I firmly stand by my statements on climate control in tee pees (far better than a yurt) and also the situation in Las Vegas....they have forgotten about the games played on the weekend already. 

Next.

[gingerjon]

Just now, Kayakman said:

they have forgotten about the games played on the weekend already.

I believe I am right in saying that the only Australian sport covered live by a major US network (Fox Sports 1) next weekend, and every weekend thereafter for the season, is aussie rules.

So quite where any momentum from this event is meant to go - in a US sense - is meant to go, I have no idea.

[Click]

1 minute ago, Kayakman said:

Perfectly fine...and I firmly stand by my statements on climate control in tee pees (far better than a yurt) and also the situation in Las Vegas....they have forgotten about the games played on the weekend already. 

Next.

Yeah, that's kind of what happens in Vegas. They move on from one event to the next very quickly as they have a huge turnover of people.

Not sure how someone in London knows that about Vegas, but not someone in North America. What's that about yoghurt being yoghurt?