Locker Room: NRL’s bid to sell the game to US sparks debate for afternoon grand final return

To stay current in the US, for the entire 2024 season, the NRL are going to have to dance for the biggest audience. Could that mean bringing back an afternoon grand final?

An afternoon NRL grand final is back on the agenda.

Repeat. This is not a drill.

An afternoon NRL grand final is back on the agenda.

Well, after the fireballs and fireworks have been shot in Las Vegas next weekend, it will be.

ARL commission chairman Peter V’landys has already thrown the bait in the water.

The rugby league supremo has a clear and bold vision beyond next weekend’s historic Las Vegas double-header.

He wants the immediate take-up by Fox Sports in the US of at least one NRL game every week to be broadcast live into the states on the main sports channel.

The Broncos Wendell Sailor scores a try in the last daytime grand final in 2000. Picture: Mark Evans

As it stands, the NRL has achieved with the support of Fox Sports the monumental feat of beaming the Rabbitohs and Sea Eagles match and the Broncos and Roosters clash live into the US on Fox’s main channel.

What has been happening in the past, particularly last season, is that rugby league has been aired in the US on Fox’s subsidiary channel, Fox Soccer Plus.

Three matches from every NRL round are telecast on that channel each week.

The elevation of the 2024 season kick-off up the channel chain to Fox Sports 1 is both unprecedented and financially alluring.

Taking into account the commercial opportunities that will extend from rugby league being available to 72.4 million homes, industry experts have advised this column that across the five year term of the game’s Las Vegas kick-off, the NRL could generate more than half a billion dollars in revenue for the game.

Not that V’landys wants only one game on the main channel.

“We want the whole NRL season to be shown live in America if we can,” V’landys told journalists recently.

He’s right, what sense does it make to fly 10 jumby jets of rugby league hype to America, stop over for the night in Vegas and then not be seen again for another 12-months?

To stay current in the US, for the entire 2024 season, the NRL are going to have to dance for the biggest audience.

To achieve the feat of more games being shown live on the main Fox Sports 1 channel to a population of 39.24 million in the state of California, the ARL Commission will need to be nimble – as it has shown through the covid pandemic – by massaging kick-off times back in Australia.

Aaron Woods, Billy Walters, Spencer Leniu and Campbell Graham at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Picture: Grant Trouville

Which is where an afternoon NRL grand final comes in.

As it stands, the NRL grand final, our Superbowl, is scheduled to kick-off at 12.30am on America’s West Coast.

The epic 2023 grand final between the Panthers and Broncos kicked-off at 7.30pm in Sydney, a timeslot that should make little sense if the ARLC are serious, which we know they are, on exposing the best and biggest games and players to the US.

The NRL is also using the Las Vegas expedition to drive up subscribers of the WatchNRL app.

“Sign up now and you can watch all our Superbowl until 2am in the morning” is hardly the most appealing marketing campaign.

If the NRL pulled the grand final back to the afternoon time slot of 4pm, the game would have a shot, with the equivalent kick-off 9pm timeslot back in the US and a greater shot at capturing the eyes of more than 72 million homes.

The work going on behind the scenes from the NRL and all four clubs to captivate a new audience, and most importantly more sponsorships and funding back into the game, is like nothing the game has previously attempted.

We also know that the ARLC aren’t afraid to make a call that raises the stakes for the game.

If the NRL are ever going to adjust their watches and wind back the clock of the grand final, what better time to do so, when America is awake.