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Broadcasters agree on May 28 re-start for NRL

A broadcaster breakthrough, but length of 2020 season is still to be thrashed out.

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The NRL, Nine and FOX Sports have agreed to a proposed May 28 restart date for the NRL season -but the length of the season is still to be resolved.

ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys struck a deal with broadcast partners, following another round of meetings with Nine CEO Hugh Marks and Foxtel chief Patrick Delany.

While Nine prefers a 17 week season, Foxtel is keen for 20 weeks.

“We’re united on the commencement date, the target date being the 28th of May,” V’landys told NRL.com.

“From there we just need a bit more information on the competition structure, so everything’s going to plan.

“And the meeting was very amicable and held in very good spirits and all three parties are united in aiming to get the game back and give it as big an audience as possible.”

Earlier on the Today show he said, “We’ve got two different broadcasters. One has a different view to the other.”

The length of season is still being thrashed out with a decision expected to be made next week.

The State of Origin series will be held after the grand final, pending consultation with the RLPA, states and clubs.

14 Responses

  1. Nine is worried about the finals series/State Of Origin conflicting with the T20 World Cup – well give the rights to another network then. They’ll be glad to show the games.

    Besides, I doubt there will actually be any non-Australian or New Zealand players flying to Australia for the T20 World Cup, so it’s going to be a short tournament!

  2. so we are going to play games on the 28th may , what about the warriors and the qld teams and the storm . what about where we are playing games what about the 3-4 mths away from family , Yes but we are playing on the 28th may

  5. If l was in charge of a major sport l would take control by offering the broadcast of individual time slots to the highest bidder. For example Thursday nights game, open to all broadcasters to bid but they don’t have a choice of who plays. Friday night game the same and so on. You may find 5 broadcasters are airing different broadcast times. This way the sport dictates the games schedule and draw. How it works now is the main broadcasters gets to pick n choose and dictates air time,etc. The NRL needs to the driver not Nine or Fox

    2. This is the US model with the NFL, broadcasters bid for the time periods, not the competition in its entirety. FOX has Thursday night, NBC Sunday nights and so on..

    1. This isn’t about rugby, it’s about rugby league. Rugby Australia is currently on life support with no plans to recommence.

      You’d need to check with the administrators of the French Open about what is happening there but a simple explanation could be France has lots more cases than Australia and requires people from around the world to participate. Australia and NZ on the other hand seem to have things under control and will be in a pretty good place for a well managed local competition to commence next month if things keep trending as they are.

      I’ve seen nothing to suggest that only essential services should operate or if there is it’s a broad definition because coffee shops and restaurants certainly aren’t essential but I’m glad they have ways to operate for their customers and employees.

    2. Because France hasn’t had 6800odd, cases and 72 unfortunate deaths.

      But in my opinion unless crowds can attend then sport should wait until they can.

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