Why Las Vegas really can change everything for Super League’s future

Yes, you’ve heard it before. This is the event, and the game, which really could change everything for the better. You’ve also heard the next line before: no, forget about those ones that failed before. THIS one. This one matters.

And as Super League prepares to make history with a groundbreaking game in Las Vegas between Wigan Warriors and Warrington Wolves, you’ll have heard the same buzz words over and over again. And if you shrugged your shoulders and rolled your eyes, who can blame you?

After all, we’ve had the Nou Camp. We’ve had Wollongong. We’ve even had Magic Weekend. But let us be brutally frank: none of those have really had a meaningful impact apart from one standalone game.

So why is this any different? Three simple letters: NRL.

Super League has taken more games on the road in an attempt to crack new areas than you’ll likely remember. But this time, they aren’t doing it alone. They have a wealth of riches at their disposal in the shape of the sport’s most powerful and wealthiest competition.

The scale of the marketing and exposure the NRL has managed to secure for Vegas this year is absolutely eye-watering. It has managed to puncture the attention of the most congested and intense sporting market in the world and people are taking notice.

And Super League is going to be the recipient of some of that exposure. This isn’t a shoestring budget attempt to market a game in a new country: this is an all-out assault on a fresh market – and Super League is getting a slice of the pie.

But the real impact of this venture isn’t going to be felt on Saturday. It’s going to be felt back home over the next few months on a couple of fronts.

Australia experienced a huge boom in its own territories in rugby league after the inaugural Vegas event last year. Privately, there are hopes Super League will now experience a similar ‘halo effect’ in the UK, with audiences and attendances increasing off the back of the exposure the game has had this week.

Sky Sports have spent the last few years not only reducing Super League’s TV deal, but telling the clubs they needed to do more, and be different, to arrest that slide. With Vegas, it’s the broadcaster who have been investing huge sums and devising ideas like the Michael Buffer one.

Corny? Maybe. But have a look online at the outlets who wouldn’t normally cover rugby league that were publishing stories and clips on Buffer, on Las Vegas – heck, even on a wedding chapel PR stunt. Sky, all of a sudden, are investing more than they have for years.

If audiences go up, and attendances continue to climb, that results in one major thing: an improved TV deal. Extra money on the bottom line, which means extra money for Super League to try new things. And it all starts in Las Vegas this weekend.

But it doesn’t end there. All of British rugby league’s key administrators – Simon Johnson, Tony Sutton, Rhodri Jones and the most powerful club executives – are out in Vegas. Sure, they are going for the experience and the nice holiday – but they’re also there to try and woo the NRL.

There is a growing school of thought behind closed doors that Super League would be more and more open to a purchase by the NRL.

Peter V’landys, the most powerful administrator in the game and a hugely impressive operator, is acutely aware of Super League’s desire to cosy up to the NRL. And he seems open to it. He spoke to Sky earlier this week about the need for a strong English game. He gets it.

The Aussies are impressed by the turnout of fans from the UK who have gone to Vegas: over 10,000. Super League will categorically be invited back in 2026. For two competitions who have spent so long doing things differently and never really aligning, all of a sudden, there is a blossoming relationship.

To get even a slither of the NRL’s resource and finance invested into Super League would shift the tectonic plates of rugby league in this country like never before.

Yes, the Nou Camp was great. Yes, Wollongong in 2018 was a fun experience. But nothing really came of it in terms of a legacy: and when you look back, it’s not hard to see why.

But Super League goes on the road again this weekend under the wing of the most powerful governing body this sport has. That alone emphasises why this is a pivotal moment in the sport’s recent history.

Warrington CEO Karl Fitzpatrick, a man who has been instrumental in making this happen, said this week he thought Wigan versus the Wire was the biggest game in British rugby league history.

It’s hard to argue.

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