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It’s deja vu yet again from the wonderful people at Channel 9 who have given the rugby league public the middle finger with their coverage of the game.
Usually it’s the coverage of the game in southern and western states, and fans are used to that by now. But there was a time, not long ago, where fans of the game, including myself, thought they had changed their ways somewhat when they purchased the rights to show the English Super League and the finals of the Challenge Cup.
Until a few years ago, Fox Sports had the broadcast rights to the Super League and the Challenge Cup finals, and did a great job.
They showed the two weekend Super League games on a Thursday night from 6.30pm. They would also show the Super League final live, with pre and post match interviews and analysis, and the BBC’s live feed of the Challenge Cup semi’s and final match.
Then Channel 9 buys the rights, which did raise the eyebrows of Australian-based fans of the English game, but like many, I thought, why would they buy it if they weren’t going to show it at better times?
They started with having one game before the 4pm game on a Sunday afternoon and the other at the early hours of Monday morning.
The Sunday afternoon coverage didn’t last long, and of course, like our friends outside of NSW and QLD, the English game was shafted to the early hours of the morning twice a week.
The Challenge Cup Final, until this year, was shown live. Unlike Fox Sports, they can have a expert panel of Peter Sterling or Andrew Voss joined by Phil Gould. But, of course, Gus is just there to badmouth the English game and call it a Mickey Mouse competition.
This weekend, the Leeds Rhinos will face last year’s champs the Warrington Wolves in what could be the biggest crowd at the new Wembley, surpassing the 84 000 that attended its re-opening in 2007.
But Channel 9 once again aren’t showing the game live. It’s instead being shown at 12.30am on Monday morning.
The utter contempt that Channel 9 shows the game outside of NSW and QLD is bad enough. But to buy the rights for the English game and treat it like this should surely get the powers to be at the NRL pushing hard, whether its Channel 9 or the other free to air broadcasters, to get a much better coverage deal.
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