- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
I’ve been a hardcore American rugby league fan for four years now and the NRL needs to start leaving a footprint here in America.
I was fortunate enough to be able to fly all the way to the other side of the country to see the Denver Test and It was genuinely one of the best experiences of my life. Seeing all those players that I wake up at five in the morning to watch life was truly magical.
I even got a chance to meet Jared Waerea-Hargreaves after the game and he’ll now always be my favourite non-Manly player ever.
The reason I brought all of that up was because even though I’ve loved rugby league for four years now, seeing a professional game live and in person made me fall in love with the game all over again.
So imagine how many new fans the NRL could create if other people with no exposure to the game experienced the magic that I felt.
Todd Greenberg brings it up every year – the NRL are looking to bring a game to Los Angeles or somewhere else in America – but they never do.
Well now is the perfect time to do it with Valentine Holmes signing with the Jets. The NRL is getting its name out there with the one of the biggest sports leagues in the world in the NFL talking about Valentine Holmes’ background in the NRL.
The NRL also put up those Easts billboards up in my hometown, Atlanta, so that also helped put the word out.
The Denver Test also did fantastic in attendance numbers with over 19,000 people at the game. That’s 3,000 more than the average NRL attendance in 2018 of just over 16,000 fans.
So the games will sell tickets and it wouldn’t be a bad look for the game. Finally, the players would absolutely love the opportunity to expose a new audience to the game they love and have played all their lives.
All the NRL needs to do is bring one or two games a year to America and that would go a long way in expanding the NRL fandom all over America and the rest of the world.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.