Rugby league's takeover in Las Vegas has been rated a major success – but how did the American audience react to the NRL double-header?
In a historic move for the league, four teams descended upon Allegiant Stadium on Sunday afternoon (AEDT), with plenty of hard-hitting and exciting action.
Joseph Manu pulled off a couple of miracle plays to lift the Roosters to victory over the Broncos, while the performance of Luke Brooks in his Manly debut showed promising signs for the maligned playmaker in their win over the Rabbitohs.
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The official attendance was revealed to be over 40,000 – an overwhelming success from an NRL perspective – with a mix of Aussie, American, English and other travelling fans flocking to the state-of-the-art indoor stadium.
The coverage got off to a rocky start in the States however, with the Souths-Manly showdown forced onto Fox Sports 2 due to a college basketball game running into overtime, which diminished the reach of the match for the opening 17 minutes.
While it was at an easier time to watch on the west coast of America where the game was held, east coast fans were forced to wait until 9.30pm for the first game to begin, with the Roosters-Broncos clash not kicking off until 11.30pm in New York.
One source told Wide World of Sports that there was 'zero news coverage' of the Vegas games in a sports-mad Boston market and the NRL would 'need to play earlier games' in order to attract a wider audience in America.
The reaction to the games was that of confusion and amazement from the American audience, with one New York-based writer running a live blog for The Guardian.
"One of the Bunnies chokes a Manly player, but this seems to be fine. Nobody seemed to get too upset about it," David Lengel wrote at one stage.
After both Tevita Tatola and Lachlan Croker were shown on the broadcast sporting nasty cuts to their face and head, Lengel described it as "human cockfighting".
"ANOTHER player is bleeding! Is this normal?" he asked.
At the conclusion of the first game, Lengel – who predominantly covers sports such as NFL and MLB – praised the physical and exciting nature of rugby league.
"If this game came to New York, and they didn't price gouge me out of the place, I'd go and watch, no question."
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NFL star Puka Nacua, who starred for the Los Angeles Rams in his rookie NFL season, also praised the league stars – but stopped short of wanting to make a switch.
"As a football player don't count me in on ever playing rugby because I don't want to get hit like that ever," he told NRL.com post-game.
"What I seen them go through… don't put me through that."
American boxing promoter Lou Dibella, who has backed the likes of world champions Amanda Serrano and George Kambsos Jr. – hyped up the event on Twitter.
"I friggin' love NRL," he said.
"Fast, exciting, physical, and easy to understand."
https://twitter.com/loudibella/status/1764148245423411579?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Elsewhere, former WWE champion John Bradshaw Layfield – better known as JBL – publicly endorsed the game via social media.
"What a fun sport to watch," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
JBL wasn't the only wrestling star tuning in, with Sydney-born sensation Grayson Waller making the trip to Vegas for the NRL double-header and UFC event earlier in the day and spotted alongside Hollywood actor, Tom Hardy.
https://twitter.com/GraysonWWE/status/1764419750023528516?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
NRL bosses Peter V'landys and Andrew Abdo have committed to returning to the States for the next four seasons, with their plans to tap into a new market off to a great start.
"If we can make it here, it'll be worth tens, if not thousands of millions of dollars for the game," the ARLC chairman told Fox League.
"It's not going to happen in the first 12 months or the first two years — we've set ourselves a goal over five. This is the start, this is the foundation.
"We now have to build the house."
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