ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys says NRL’s Las Vegas round will not lose its attraction

Peter V’landys insists the NRL’s Las Vegas venture won’t run out of puff, as officials consider whether schedule tweaks are needed to keep English fans in the stadium.

V’landys on Sunday (Monday AEDT) declared that there was “no doubt” the NRL had pulled off its most successful Vegas extravaganza, with the crowd slightly edging out last year’s.

Of the 45,719 fans inside Allegiant Stadium, an estimated 20,000 travelled from Australia, 10,000 were from England and 5,000 came from other countries overseas.

V’landys has made clear in the past week that the NRL sees Vegas as its “anchor event”, set to stay on the calendar long-term as the league pursues a full global round.

But there remains a feeling among club bosses that the third year in Sin City may be the league’s peak: still attracting big travelling numbers before hype eventually subsides.

The ARL Commission chair, though, remains adamant that won’t be an issue, and that the NRL can have a full round of teams returning again.

“[Most of] the clubs that came here in the first one in the first year probably won’t get here in the [initial] five years,” V’landys said.

“So the fans will be ready for the next year. And every team has asked to come again.

“I don’t think it’s going to lose its charisma or attraction because there’s a lot of fans that probably didn’t come the first time.

“And I think the fans that did come will come again.”

One challenge the NRL knows it must contend with is keeping the English fans engaged.

Even with the schedule reduced from four games to three this year, large pockets of the Hull KR fan area were empty well before Canterbury and St George Illawarra hit golden point.

One option would be for the league to slot the Super League fixture between the two NRL games, but that is not without challenges.

“The biggest problem we had last night was that the team that lost, naturally some of their fans went home,” V’landys said.

“We have to look at that.

“But the problem is that the way they’re structured at the moment fits in the time zones for both England and Australia.

“So we’re going to have to find a way where we maintain that audience in their seats.”

A double-header in London has every chance of being added next year, with V’landys confident it can draw on both Australian expats and Super League fans in England.

That would loom as the next step in V’landys’s three-year plan for a full global move to at least four cities, although it is yet to be decided if that would all be played in round one or spread across the season.

Miami, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong are options to join Vegas, while V’landys admitted the current unrest in the Middle East had played on his mind in regards to Abu Dhabi or Dubai.

“Naturally it is, because you want to make sure that you don’t take any risks with whatever you do,” he said.

“But that’s a long way away. And I don’t want to discount it or rule it out because there’s a lot of time between now and then.”

AAP