If you had a choice between putting your hard-earned on whether the Tigers would win or lose against the Sharks, or on whether the 49ers would beat the Patriots, what would you do? (You know and I know that it’s been 20 years since anyone won money betting on the Tigers, and even that was a fluke, but how would they know?) So why would Patriots fans bet on the NRL? The truth is, they don’t.
But I digress!

For we are yet to get to the most priceless thing of all. See, this year, in the lead-up to Vegas, the big schtick the NRL hit us with was how they were hoping to bring in the big names.

President Donald Trump might come! Or Dana White! Or maybe a Hollywood superstar, like Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson! And look, if we can’t get them, the Raiders have already reached out to seven-time Super Bowl winner, the greatest quarterback who ever lived, Tom Brady, to get him to blow the horn!

I kid you not. Whole oceans of printer’s ink were spilled, speculating on whether these people would or would not appear at Vegas. It was all just – hold the back page – so exciting!

Ummmm, but who did they actually get? Well, look, none of the above.

But at least they got an NFL superstar to blow the Raiders horn, yes?

No, no, no, not Tom Brady. Another bloke. It was – checks notes – “Tyler Manoa” from the Las Vegas Raiders. Heard of this “NFL superstar”? No, me neither. So I looked him up.

Last year, he was undrafted, before being signed to the Arizona Cardinals Practice Squad on September 5 … before being released by the Cardinals five days later. Then he was indeed signed to the Las Vegas Raiders practice squad on December 10 last year, before, yes, being signed to a futures contract by the Raiders on January 7 this year. But at the age of 25, he is yet to play in a single NFL match.

But look, at least he blew the horn, yes? Like, we really had an NFL bloke blow the Canberra Raiders horn, and THAT was exciting, yes?

Yes, I concede that point. I could barely contain myself.

More interesting though, was what happened then. Though the details are still unclear, it seems Mr Manoa was something less than transfixed by the NRL spectacle he had just formally begun, for he was shortly thereafter forcibly evicted from the stadium, after having beaten up a bathroom in such egregious manner that security was called.

You couldn’t make this up!

In the end, the whole thing was just another case of the hoopla to hapless dynamic in the NRL Vegas venture being so wonderful one can barely raise spit.

But I must, for there is one more unpleasant sneer to come. See, there has also been a curious change of boast, mid-stream from the NRL this year. Last year, as discussed, it was all about how much money the NRL was going to make from the seed money they put down. This year, it was all about how much Vegas made out of the NRL!

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“[The tourism chief]” Peter V’landys boasted, “said they had a $100m economic stimulus here in Vegas with the NRL being here.”

I give up. How is Australians spending their share of $100m of their hard-earned in American businesses rather than Australian businesses something to boast about?

So, that’s it. I am done.

I know I have fallen off the wagon to offer these sneers, but I am going to give it another go. This day of publication is Day Zero. From now I am going to see how many days I can go, without doing it again!

My name is Peter FitzSimons and on the NRL’s Vegas venture, I am a sneeraholic.

I must not sneer . . .

I must not sneer . . .

I must not sneer . ..

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