The NRL is making a hard sell to American viewers with two games on Saturday night at Allegiant Stadium just weeks away from hosting the Super Bowl.
“I promise – I promise you’re going to enjoy what we affectionately call the greatest game,” Australian commentator Dan Ginnane said at the start of Fox Sports’ US broadcast of the game, which is taking place in this otherworldly city. Played on American courts. Las Vegas.
Many people have made this statement over the years. Few succeed. Yet on the face of it, rugby league may have a better chance than most sports of achieving that elusive breakthrough in the United States.
It’s violent, and the American people love its violence. The rhythm of the game is somewhat similar to American football, with teams forced to give the ball away after a series of successful tackles by their opponents. Due to a lack of pads and helmets, games were often stopped so players could get medical attention and TV viewers could have another beer.
But one lesson we can all learn from soccer’s hard-won rise in America is that relying on pyrotechnics, booming music and its commonalities with other sports to sell a sport doesn’t work in the long run.
So what does rugby league have to offer to stand out?
First, the confusing rules.
“It’s difficult to explain some of the intricacies of the game to people watching it for the first time,” commentator Andrew Voss admitted during his broadcast of Saturday’s second game, which the Sydney Roosters defeated. Brisbane Broncos.
Despite the VAR controversy, football still benefits from its self-proclaimed status as “the simplest sport”. This is a ball. You want to kick it into that goal. enjoy.
In rugby league, the goal is to move the ball down the field and stop it every time someone intercepts the ball carrier and holds him down long enough for him to hand the ball to a teammate. If the attacking team is intercepted six times, then They’re trying to score with one touch, are you still paying attention?
Of course, American football is extremely complex. It’s about 5 seconds of action and then maybe 30 seconds of people with charts and laptops and headphones trying to figure out what to do in the next 5 seconds. But that’s why it’s only really popular in one country, where all the kids grow up understanding the concepts of touchdowns and first downs. If they grew up playing the popular Madden video game series, they may even understand the concept of a cover-2 defense or RPO (run-pass option).
Rugby League also had some U.S. Soccer hiatus, but not nearly as much — and no Long enough to squeeze in commercials and make Super Bowl Sunday interesting for those who don’t know who Patrick Mahomes is and only know Travis Kelce because he’s talking to the Earth Most popular people to date.
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Rugby league has to be compared to other rugby leagues. During Saturday night’s festivities on Fox, one Chiron told viewers that Major League Rugby is being broadcast on the Fox Sports app, a step towards making the simpler, more globally recognized game of rugby a success in the United States. The latest and perhaps best attempt.
Rugby league may not even be the most popular Australian sport in the United States. When ESPN first started in the 1980s, ESPN had no bright spots. One of the sports it focused on was Australian rules football. The game was relatively chaotic, and neatly dressed players would ritually point to the ball with both hands. Indicates that a goal has been scored. .
Fox is also the operator of the AFL in the US, and one wonders if this was a typical rugby league game, rather than just this much-hyped event in Vegas, with a bunch of wealthy Australians crossing the Pacific to watch a rugby match. . A novel event and perhaps watching U2 on The Sphere – with ratings approaching a typical AFL game.
Granted, if the NRL is finding it difficult to squeeze games into the tight confines of the NFL, it’s hard to imagine the AFL and its Death Star-sized grounds making frequent visits.
That’s not to dismiss rugby league’s chances entirely. There are 330 million people in the United States, many of whom have more disposable income than brains. Despite various political movements, the overall culture here is less xenophobic than in the past, when football was denounced in the US Capitol as a “European socialist movement”.
Just look closely and you’ll find people playing and watching almost everything here. We’ll be hosting a couple of cricket’s next men’s T20 World Cups and, assuming the country doesn’t break up over the next seven years, rugby union will be hosting the World Cup as well.
So if Las Vegas and Fox Sports are willing to host the occasional NRL game, it’s worth a try. We would like to remind those who watch rugby league or play in the college club games that are slowly emerging here that this is only worth four points in rugby league. Still better than zero.
