Game Predictions

[Digby]

30 days free trial. Contact your local rugby club, There's some sort of offer being run by rfu and Amazon that if you signup through the club they can earn a bit from it too.

Turns out we already have it. Quality effort on my part there

[morepork]

I'm looking forward to France Vs. Fiji.

[switchskier]

How many people are watching the Georgia game?

On the tele, or my computer, or possibly even trying out watching it on the quest 2 headset. Amazon prime.

Two days ago I was staunch in my belief my objection in principle to the game not being on TV, on Netflix, Sky or on BT would see me avoid it, but I'm starting to weaken.

I wonder what the record is for the lowest TV audience ever for an England game on TV, this one seems designed in advance to set new standards in such area.

Trouble is that Amazon are quite openly doing this as a trial to see if the viewing numbers make it worthwhile in the future. So, despite the fact that I have Amazon prime I'm considering not watching to avoid them picking up more rugby in the future. I'll weaken by Saturday though.

[Mr Mwenda]

I'm looking forward to France Vs. Fiji.

Apparently now in doubt due to Corona chaos, chiz.

[Digby]

On the tele, or my computer, or possibly even trying out watching it on the quest 2 headset. Amazon prime.

Two days ago I was staunch in my belief my objection in principle to the game not being on TV, on Netflix, Sky or on BT would see me avoid it, but I'm starting to weaken.

I wonder what the record is for the lowest TV audience ever for an England game on TV, this one seems designed in advance to set new standards in such area.

Trouble is that Amazon are quite openly doing this as a trial to see if the viewing numbers make it worthwhile in the future. So, despite the fact that I have Amazon prime I'm considering not watching to avoid them picking up more rugby in the future. I'll weaken by Saturday though.

I've similar thoughts, influenced further by the fact Amazon whilst being technically very, very impressive, are run by one of the most selfish arseholes to ever live.

[Raggs]

Surely more companies interested in showing the rugby, means higher bids for rugby content? The AIs haven't been on terrestrial completely for some time now, so it's not as though we're losing it on freeview for a paid service. Just going from one to the other.

[Puja]

On the tele, or my computer, or possibly even trying out watching it on the quest 2 headset. Amazon prime.

Two days ago I was staunch in my belief my objection in principle to the game not being on TV, on Netflix, Sky or on BT would see me avoid it, but I'm starting to weaken.

I wonder what the record is for the lowest TV audience ever for an England game on TV, this one seems designed in advance to set new standards in such area.

Trouble is that Amazon are quite openly doing this as a trial to see if the viewing numbers make it worthwhile in the future. So, despite the fact that I have Amazon prime I'm considering not watching to avoid them picking up more rugby in the future. I'll weaken by Saturday though.

...why? Surely we want this to be a success?

More companies being interested in screening rugby is a good thing. The competition means higher revenues to the game, driving up the next deal for Premiership rights, 6N rights, AI rights, RWC rights, etc. It's especially important if we plan on continuing to ringfence some things like 6N and the RWC as terrestrial only because we need the rights of the other things to be valuable to subsidise that.

And, from a selfish perspective, do you remember what domestic rugby coverage was like when it was Sky or nothing? We got one game a week, the worst commentary and production possible, and a highlights show that was 7 parts Morris sucking off Barnes to 1 part actual rugby highlights. Come ESPN and suddenly we had 3 games a weekend, actual analysis, a choice of roundup shows - and that made Sky up their game for the matches they had left (and BBC and ITV importing the quality from ESPN/BT to improve their productions). Competition is a good thing here. Given the ubiquity of Amazon users, I wouldn't be surprised if there were more Prime subscribers than there are BT Sport subscribers, so it's not an onerous platform to access.

Puja

[Digby]

I'm not convinced getting to pay for so many services proves competition works. Also if they truly want competition I'd like to be able to purchase a package from any nation, and not be restricted to those in the UK market

[Mr Mwenda]

In Sweden, one of the streaming services has started picking up rugby. They do a combo of just directly streaming the English language feed with a few with commentary provided by a couple of blasers from Stockholm Exiles rugby club. Much easier to ignore!