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It’s more enjoyable to watch NRL on Pay TV. I’m not talking about the commentators or the pre/post game shows. NRL is better to watch on Foxtel simply because there are no ads during the games.
This became evident during the recent Tigers versus the Eels Friday night game a few weeks ago.
The Eels and the Tigers are my two favourite teams to watch. I was eagerly anticipating the match-up between Marshall and Hayne.
However, at the 60 minute mark of watching the game, I turned it off, I just couldn’t get into the game. The next morning I read the glowing reviews, “Best game of the season” and “Marshall turns on the magic”.
I couldn’t comprehend this was the same game I had watched.
Later that weekend, I watched the replay on Foxtel and I enjoyed it even though I knew the result. Granted, the final 20 minutes I had previously missed were the best part of the game, but the game flowed better and I stayed in the ‘moment’ because there were no adverts breaking my attention.
I watched the Tigers versus the Raiders on Sunday with some mates.
After the Raiders scored their 2nd try, and had the conversion attemp,t we went to an ad break. One mate commented how long the ad break was, it seemed to go forever.
So after the next try we counted the ads. There were seven…. seven ads!!!
That’s between 3 and 3.5 minutes of interruption.
Now, that may not seem like much, but look at your clock and sit there for 3 minutes and see how long 3 minutes really is. There were 10 tries scored in that game. Were we forced to sit and watch 30 minutes of adverts during the game?
That’s 1/3 of a game of football. No wonder the Sunday afternoon game starts at 4 and ends at 6pm.
Now that the volume of ads was brought to our attention, the game became near unbearable. The ad breaks were frequent and long. Thankfully the game was a cracker and we stuck with it.
Now this has been pointed put, I’m afraid it’s going to drive you nuts.
I’m concerned with what will happen after the next round of TV rights negotiations. Irrespective as to whether channels 9, 7 or 10 win the rights to show NRL in the next round of negotiations, if the bidding gets in the realm of $1 billion, it’s only going to get worse.
The winning network (or networks) will need to recoup that expenditure in the only way they can. They will need to sell advertising.
There are a number of permutations as to how best to maximise revenue through advertising, but the simple view is they can either charge more for an ad, or put in more ads during the game. My bet is they will do both.
This will make watching NRL on free to air TV even more unpalatable for me.
Only about 25% of Australian households have Foxtel. It’s an expensive luxury.
I only watch NRL and Super Rugby on Foxtel, but it makes watching football so much more enjoyable. My attention isn’t punctuated with channel 9’s latest TV show promotion or a deodorant commercial. I stay with the game, I listen to an extra bit of commentary and the excitement I had from watching a try stays with me through the next kick off. The momentum of excitement continues throughout the game.
From now on, I will record the free to air NRL games on IQ and fast forward the ads. For those of you who don’t have Foxtel, get a DVR (digital video recorder), fast forward the ads and enjoy your footy even more.
If you don’t, the ads during the game will soon become like a dripping tap.
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