What if other global sports leagues decided to invade and colonize the United States? To make American sports fans care about foreign leagues by regularly playing games here?

We pose this question not in response to teams such as Manchester United or Real Madrid playing American “friendlies,” but to better understand what happens if more European, Asian or Australian leagues decide gold is buried in our hills.

SBJ readers probably think nothing when hearing the NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL are playing regular-season games overseas. What they haven’t seen is the reverse.

One such “invasion” was held in Las Vegas in early March, when the National Rugby League’s Telstra Premiership staged a four-game showcase at Allegiant Stadium. On a single day, the Australian and New Zealand-based NRL played (for the second consecutive year) their season’s first two games, and amped the festivities by adding two English Super League teams as well as a women’s friendly involving England and Australia.

The single-day event didn’t sell all of Allegiant Stadium’s 65,000 seats, but the NRL drew a nice crowd of more than 45,000, a nearly 5,000-spectator increase over the 2024 event (roughly a 13% increase). With three more iterations scheduled (as part of the five-year deal), a sellout by 2027 is not a far-fetched idea.

© Sports Business Journal