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Brisbane, Manly, South Sydney and the Roosters have won the race to represent the NRL at next year’s ground-breaking double-header to open the season in Las Vegas.
The NRL anounced on Friday that the four teams had been given the nod after head office went through submissions from clubs with Canberra and Melbourne understood to have just missed out.
The matches will be the first for premiership points to be contested outside Oceania.
“The 2024 Las Vegas matches will form part of an exciting ‘Australia Week’ in Las Vegas where we will be showcasing rugby league and Australia to the US market,” NRL CEO Andrew Abdo said.
“We are now working collaboratively with the four clubs to finalise arrangements for the proposed matches in Las Vegas and make this a blockbuster event for fans by maximising travel, attendance and enjoyment of a unique rugby league experience.
“Rugby league will be on a stage which the sport has simply never been on before and we look forward to giving all clubs the opportunity in coming years.”
The final details of the matches in Las Vegas are yet to be finalised but it is likely that the four teams will play the matches in the US the weekend before the start of the regular season and then have Round 1 off as they travel back home.
Patrick Carrigan. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Abdo and ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys travelled to America in May to investigate the feasibility of the fixtures.
But it has taken some three months since then to plan the historic games, with the league set to liaise with the four clubs on further logistics and announce more details in the coming weeks.
The NRL is likely to announce the 65,000-seat Allegiant Stadium – home to the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders – as the location of the matches to be played in the first week of March.
The NRL sees the fixtures as an opportunity to break into the lucrative American sports gambling market, and to convert fans of the similarly gladiatorial NFL.
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