At a time where rugby has supposedly become the fastest-growing team sport in America, it is troubling indeed that we have fewer and fewer viewing options for international rugby in this country.
Just a couple of short years ago, if you had a reasonably deep cable package, you had access to the following competitions on TV – the Six Nations, the Pro 12, and the Premiership (all on Bein Sports). If you had a Directv subscription, you could also find every match in Super Rugby, the (Mitre 10) ITM Cup, the Currie Cup, and the Rugby Championship. On top of that, you could find the Top 14 on ESPN3. Basically, if you had Directv, you had pretty decent access to all of the major competitions on the planet.
Just a couple of short years later, again, at a time where rugby is supposed to be on the rise in the US, we’ve slowly seen our rugby viewing options decrease. ESPN has acquired the SANZAAR license, and to this point they have refused to post any Mitre 10 or Currie Cup games on ESPN3, save only for the finals last season in each competition (and Austrailia’s NRC final). They have, at least, shown every Super Rugby and Rugby Championship match on ESPN3.
Similarly, US TV coverage of rugby has decreased. While many in this country (including me) hailed the Aviva Premiership’s deal with NBC Sports as a boon for rugby coverage in the States, with games available both on television and online, instead what we’re seeing is more than half of the games NBC offers moved behind a pay wall (NBC Sports Gold). Hiding the games behind an additional fee is a pretty strange move if you’re trying to grow the game in the US.
But don’t tell that to the Pro 14. Their games have migrated behind an entirely separate pay wall, this one run by USA Rugby (the Rugby Channel, where they’ve also stashed many of the Eagles’ matches). Again, how do you simultaneously grow interest and restrict access? Easy, you don’t.
Finally, we seem to have lost the Top 14 altogether. After two weeks, there has been no sign of any Top 14 matches on ESPN3, and notwithstanding what their Twitter bios may say, repeated inquiries to ESPN about those matches will go unanswered.
This is all a very odd and depressing set of circumstances.
On the Pitch Notes from Europe’s Week 1 –
Rumor has it there were games this past weekend in Europe, despite what our TV listings may say.
In England, the Premiership set an opening weekend scoring record. It looked like Super Rugby out there!
Hey, didn’t you used to be the champs? Exeter set about defending their championship from last year by…losing to Gloucester? The same Gloucester that lost Johnny May? That ain’t supposed to happen. We will have to see if this means Gloucester is on the rise, but it doesn’t so don’t worry about it.
Hey, weren’t you just relegated? London Irish announced their re-ascendancy to the Premiership with an upset victory over Harlequins at Twickenham. Hopefully Harlequins get relegated this year so we don’t have to look at their kits anymore. Yuck.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Tossed out of Super Rugby, the Cheetahs and Southern Kings made their debuts in the Pro 14. Both teams were absolutely throttled, with the Cheetahs losing 42-19 to Ulster, and the Kings losing 57-10 to Scarlets. To the Kings’ credit, they were competitive for a half. Then, they weren’t.
It should be noted that both teams have had to cobble together their squads, using few, if any, of their Super Rugby mainstays. Exactly two of the Kings that started against Scarlets also started the Kings’ last Super Rugby match. The two South African teams are in for a string of beatings this season, unfortunately.
The Rugby Falcon Blog 