Rugby World Cup Coverage Pathetic for Fans in Australia

Once again Australian sports fans have been shortchanged in the availability of a major world sporting event. The Rugby World Cup began on Friday and only 11 of the 48 games will be shown live on free to air television in Australia, despite the tournament taking place in their own timezone.

The control of major sporting events by pay TV channels is now almost complete. Fans who can not afford their monthly fees have limited, or no, access to world championships in the most popular sports, We have seen this in Soccer, Cricket and now Rugby Union.

Australia is known as a multicultural country, but if you wish to see any national team, other than Australia, take part in a major championship, your chances are very limited.

Rugby World Cup free to air TV Schedule. 

Free to air provider Channel 10 have chosen to only pick up the games in which Australia are taking part, from the pool rounds of the competition. The opening match of the tournament between Russia and the hosts, Japan, was added as a late afterthought.

It is very disappointing coverage of a major world sporting event. The All Blacks fearsome battle against South Africa was not seen by most Rugby fans in Australia. There are more than enough ex-pat Kiwis, South Africans and Brits, of all persuasions, in Australia to warrant showing all of their games live.

There are 20 national teams taking part in the Rugby World Cup in Japan. 

You will be lucky to see many of them on TV in Australia

It seems obvious that controlling bodies for these sports have little influence and even less interest in growing their sports. When they award exclusive coverage of most of the games to the pay TV channels, for a quick buck, they are ensuring that the majority of the public will not see the games and and the chances of the World Cup generating more interest in their sport is negligible.

We know that Rugby Australia has a pathetic record in growing their sport, having allowed the successful Western Force to be eliminated from the Super Rugby competition, while New Zealand, with less than a fifth of Australia's population, have more teams than anyone else. Argentina, over 12,000Kms away, field a national team and Japan, from the wrong hemisphere, has a less than adequate team taking part. 

Only Wallabies fans can be happy with free to air TV coverage of the 2019 Rugby World Cup

For the FIFA World Cup last year, the pay channel that monopolised it could not support the demand and released all of the matches to the multicultural, free to air channel SBS who did an excellent job of covering the tournament. Dare we hope for a similar change in fortune for Rugby fans in Australia?