Were the NRL’s American viewership figures really so bad?
Americans were not at all interested in watching the NRL double-header in Vegas on the weekend, according to local commentary around the US ratings. “There’s no sugarcoating it”, a ‘TV ratings expert’ told The Guardian. But is this accurate? Was it a bomb?
“We had a 61,000 average viewership on Fox Sports 1 for the first game, which was more than one third of the marquee college basketball clash between Xavier and Georgetown which preceded our games,” NRL boss Andrew Abdo told Nine, who hold the local broadcast rights to the NRL.
What V’Landys and Abdo are banking on is the gambling revenues that might flow from a US viewership. Really? Rugby League is a niche game struggling to keep footholds in NSW, Qld, the English Midlands and with very small pockets of support in France and NZ. The NRL is muscled by Pacific Islands players. V’L and the Ab are almost certain to find that as far as viewers are concerned they are playing out of their league. But good on them for giving it s go.
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Comparing prime time US viewership with mid-day tier two games is hardly an encouraging angle to take to make the NRL’s gamble look even close to decent. The real winner here will be the AFL who will stay focused on the local market and continue to erode the already shaky base the NRL holds. The NRL is making the same mistake that Rugby AU did by focusing too much on TV deals and not enough on weekly stadium attendance and grass-root development.
why will no one say it, it bombed. It’s viewership was good here ( as nothing else was on) . But is not even a drip in the ocean when looking at the US. The problem is the people talking about it (Fox and 9) have a vested interest in it. Good to see some actual analysis not just V’landys talking points re spewed through “owned” channels
Let’s also not forget that the viewership was likely comprised of home-sick Aussie expats, rather than any meaningful number of ‘proper’ Americans.