Super League returns to Las Vegas: Get ready for Freemont festival, awe at Allegiant, and Hull KR and Leeds Rhinos to take things up a notch | Rugby League News

Ahead of Hull KR vs Leeds Rhinos in Las Vegas, Sky Sports Rugby League’s Brian Carney recounts his memories from the showpiece event and takes us behind the scenes of a rugby league extravaganza…

Rugby League stands tall in a vast city

As you can imagine, and this will be the case for the Hull KR and the Leeds fans this year – and would have been for the Wigan and Warrington fans last year – the excitement starts building months ahead of the week in Vegas.

Particularly with the start we had last year with Michael Buffer coming over for the Wigan vs Leigh game, launching the season and shooting a Vegas commercial, there was a huge buzz about it.

For me, and I am guessing for the people I met at Manchester Airport, you see all these rugby league jerseys gathering to fly transatlantic to watch rugby league and you just feed off their enthusiasm.

Some of them were heading to New York for a couple of days before they headed out to Vegas but I am talking about a flood of jerseys in Manchester Airport which caught me by surprise in one sense but just dialled up that anticipation a little bit more.

Getting to Vegas we very quickly started filming and shooting. It is a very busy city with lots to visually distract you, bright lights, and all of that, yet rugby league jerseys stood out.

We went to the famous Las Vegas sign on the first day, and there was just a flood of Super League and NRL jerseys.

It is not lost in that vast city. That is really what was the standout thing for me.

There was so much going on but rugby league certainly had a place at the top table in Las Vegas.

Behind the scenes: Freemont street’s festival vibes

In the earlier part of the week, the teams have landed and they are just getting themselves adjusted time difference wise and going through some light training runs.

They will also know that it really ramps up from Thursday onwards.

They all stay at the Resorts World Hotel, which again goes to show you the size of the hotels in Las Vegas, that they accommodated eight teams last year. That includes all the staff, all the club officials, all the governing body officials from both the NRL and Super League, all of those.

Not only that, there are also thousands of tourists in the same hotel.

At the fan event on the Wednesday, each team gets introduced one by one in Resorts World. They have got a function area and there is an hour slot allocated to each of the sides. So, their fans congregate there, they get introduced.

Then, onto Freemont Street on the Thursday. That is something special.

Freemont Street is in the old part of Vegas – the players are all staying in what we call New Vegas Strip and Old Town Vegas is Fremont Street.

You go there and then it starts building in the afternoon, the amount of jerseys increases gradually and gradually.

At about six o’clock, everybody is rammed into there to get the best viewing position, with a passageway created through the crowd and onto a stage.

To take over the whole of Fremont Street is something else. It is like a very busy throughway, but it is turned over to the rugby league extravaganza.

The players get announced onto the stage and the noise is deafening for each and every one.

There is a big roar, even from many opposing fans or fans that aren’t of the club that are being brought up onto the stage, just because they are all rugby league fans and are so happy to see the players at such an event.

The atmosphere is raucous. There’s music, there’s a DJ, there’s a master of ceremonies just keeping the crowd going and that filters through for a couple of hours. That is a really, really big night.

Game day approaches: Awe at Allegiant Stadium

It is then walk-on day on the Friday, team run day. They all get out onto the pitch at Allegiant Stadium, which is just unbelievable, this beautiful indoor venue.

You can just see in the players’ faces when they walk out, and remember, these guys have played in many of the great stadiums.

What you notice though is that every little detail is accounted for. Last year when Wigan or Warrington or Cronulla walked out onto the field for their team run, all the branding in the stadium changed to their team. It is a small-ish detail, but it just makes the whole thing look far more professional and polished.

All the players immediately broke out into games of American football. I remember last year the Warriors, in particular, were a joy to watch as they had a game of scrimmage.

Moving into game day, we were filming early on the morning and there were hordes of rugby league fans.

We bumped into Cumbrians, people from the south of England wearing rugby league shirts and everybody was just buzzing.

Rugby League has it’s moment in the sun | Time to go up a gear!

It just makes you feel as a rugby league fan that your sport is on top of the world. We don’t get enough of these moment and, in Las Vegas, rugby league really feels elevated.

It is one of the rare times where I thought rugby league is where I’d want it to be on a regular basis.

In many ways, this is what we need to aspire to try and achieve on a more regular basis. It was polished from the get-go It was well attended, loud, with people who had flown a huge distance and at great expense to enjoy this experience.

I think it will only go up a gear with Hull KR and Leeds Rhinos. Yeah, I think the Wigan and Warrington fans were absolutely superb – they dominated in terms of noise.

The game could not have gone worse for Super League and for Warrington, but that did not stop the noise. The Wigan fans just never stopped. And, of course, they were only getting going really in terms of watching games.

In rugby league circles, the fans over here have a reputation as the loudest and, once again, they will certainly make their presence felt.

2026 Super League – key dates and what to look out for

• Rugby League in Las Vegas: Sat Feb 28: Hull KR vs Leeds Rhinos, 11.30pm (Sky Sports)
• Super League’s 30th birthday: Thu Mar 26: Castleford Tigers vs Bradford Bulls, 8pm (Sky Sports)
• Rivals Round: April 3-April 5
• Super League in Paris: Sat Jun 6: Catalans Dragons vs Wigan Warriors (Paris), 6:30 UK (Sky Sports)
• Magic Weekend: July 4-July 5
• Rivals Round reversed: July 23-July 26
• Elimination Play-offs: September 19-September 20
• Play-off semi-finals: September 26-September 27
• Grand Final: October 3, Old Trafford.

Sky Sports will again show every game of the Super League live this season – including two matches in each round exclusively live, with the remaining five matches each week shown on Sky Sports+