NRL free-to-air time: How does your team fare?

It’s a question many rugby league fans have found themselves undoubtedly asking.

Who gets the rub of the green grass and who gets left out in a chilly Canberra winter when it comes to Channel Nine’s free-to-air scheduling?

For those unwilling to subscribe to Pay TV to watch their teams play, how many games do you get to see them in without a monthly hit to the credit card?

The reality is that Channel Nine is a big business and not a patient mum dividing a chocolate block among her children. The upshot? The distribution of games is far, far from being perfectly equal.

“The Broncos get the most!” I hear all New South Wales fans thinking, very loudly.

Spoiler alert. You’d be right about that, but instead of just proving you’ve placed one small puzzle piece correctly, I’ve crafted up a bit of a ladder.

Yes, a ladder sounds like nothing special on the surface, but what about one that ranks every team in terms of the number of free-to-air games your team has appeared in during the last twelve seasons?

Say no more. Here it is.

1. Broncos: 218
2. Bulldogs: 158
3. Tigers: 153
4. Rabbitohs: 150
5. Dragons: 144
6. Eels: 133
7. Roosters: 129
8. Panthers: 111
9. Manly: 109
10. Cowboys: 90
11. Storm: 86
12. Titans: 85
13. Sharks: 74
14. Knights: 65
15. Raiders: 41
16. Warriors: 28

The initial findings are pretty clear.

Across 12 seasons of games broadcast on Channel Nine, The Broncos lead the way with 218 fixtures; a staggering 60 more than the second most Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs.

The Brisbane Broncos have a mortgage on free-to-air TV. (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

To put it into perspective, that’s over three quarters of their games ready to view with no Pay TV subscription of any kind, just a working TV aerial.

In contrast, the New Zealand Warriors have had a measly 28 games shown since 2008. That’s almost eight times fewer games than their counterparts across the ditch at just 2.3 free-to-air games per season.

While there’s no concrete proof, it’s safe to assume that the Warriors, being the only non-Australian team, don’t get much attention from the Australian free-to-air broadcaster.

But what about all the teams in-between?

Let’s return to the block of chocolate analogy, but instead of a mother and children, we’ll use a teacher and 16 students. The teacher represents those tasked with scheduling Channel Nine’s games.

As for the students? The NRL’s 16 teams.

If Channel Nine’s games were a couple of chocolate blocks, a fair teacher would presumably give each student four pieces. The teacher that’s in charge of scheduling however, would divide them as such (two are needed so each team gets at least one piece!),

Broncos: 8
Bulldogs: 6
Tigers: 6
Rabbitohs: 5
Dragons: 5
Eels: 5
Roosters: 5
Panthers: 4
Manly: 4
Cowboys: 3
Storm: 3
Titans: 3
Sharks: 3
Knights: 2
Raiders: 1
Warriors: 1

It’s safe to say that Brisbane must be a prefect or the best-behaved student in the class (getting the most at eight pieces) whereas Canberra and New Zealand simply can’t keep out of trouble but had to be given at least some chocolate. Otherwise, Sydney students all appear to get their fair share.

The Raiders don’t get the rub of the green when it comes to free-to-air TV. (AAP Image/Rohan Thomson)

Now lets look into the distribution of games by state and region.

Out of almost 1,800 games comprising over 100,000 hours of air time since 2008, 1,206 (69.1 per cent) have featured New South Wales teams (bearing in mind 10 of the 16 teams in the league are based there).

New South Wales fans can’t feel too upset once they realise Queensland teams (including the Broncos) have appeared in only 22.2 per cent (393) of those games.

Teams from outside Queensland or New South Wales have it the toughest, only appearing in sobering 8.7 per cent per cent (155) of free-to-air games.

What are the reasons behind Channel Nine’s scheduling? Variables such as perceived ratings, local derbies, number of club members, recent on-field success and demographic populations must just be some of the variables that are considered.

In the meantime, I encourage all you Broncos and Sydney team supporters to keep enjoying watching your teams free of charge.

As for Warriors, Raiders and Knights fans, the past tells us the future’s not looking great and it may be time to pull out your wallet.