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St. George Illawarra Dragons' coach Wayne Bennett (centre) with Jamie Soward andf Trent Merrin celebrate thier teams win over Sydney Roosters during the NRL Grand Final at ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Oct. 3, 2010. Dragons defeated the Roosters 32 to 8. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
2010 has been dominated with talk of expansion and television rights, not just across the rugby league media but all major football codes in this country.
No doubt 2011 will continue along this way with the AFL getting closer to finalising their rights and the Independent NRL starting to negotiated.
The one thing the NRL has going for it is the game can offer something that no other football can: four matches per year to guarantee a national viewing audience of at least three million.
Three State of Origins per year plus the grand final gives the NRL a big advantage over the others, particularly the AFL with no such Origins.
Proven results are different to promising what potential you might attract; that is the major difference between the NRL and the AFL.
With James Packer getting into Channel 10, there is another potential FTA network looking at getting into the rugby league broadcasting.
Fox has had a luxury for many years with the NRL being their biggest breadwinner, and while the arguments always come out that most people who have Pay TV are in NSW and QLD, the funny thing they seem not to say is those people are still watching the NRL over the other sports.
Monday night football is consistently the highest rated game for the NRL on Fox Sports, and if the rights for the game are sold separately then expect all the FTA networks to bid highly for this particular timeslot, and with the digital age upon us the NRL must guarantee the country, not just those in NSW and QLD, get live or near live matches on FTA.
The game has been embarrassed with the coverage the game gets outside of the heartlands; hopefully the new digital age of TV means a fair spread coverage for rugby league.
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