I was going to start a separate thread on this topic, but thought I would answer it here based on what I remember at the time and from what I have seen/researched online in the years since then. If anyone lived in any of the other teams' home regions at the time could fill us in with more details, please respond:
Yes, in their first two seasons (1995/96), but only home games. There was the rare away game that WIN covered, most notably vs Illawarra at Wollongong, the Cowboys first ever win as a club in Rd 8 '95:
If you recognise, the caller is Jason Costigan, who also called Warriors home matches for Sky NZ during 2001-10. I'm assuming this game was covered because WIN tv is based in Wollongong, which is where the match was played.
As someone who lived in the Hunter region at the time I started following the Knights in the mid-90s, I know home games were covered by NBN (called by Mike Rabbitt) from at least the beginning of 1992 after NBN was taken over by Ch9 and incorporated Ch9 programs. Broadcasts of Knights away games not covered by Ch9 started in 1994 (most notably Andrew Johns first game at halfback vs Souths at SFS, where he scored 23pts). When Fox/Optus started covering matches from the SL-war onwards, NBN telecasts started decreasing and instead of providing their own commentary/tv cameras as in the past, NBN simply simulcasted the Fox/Optus telecast. However, there was a dispute in 1999 after the Homebush double header in the opening round which saw that agreement with Fox/Optus cancelled and NBN went back to doing their own telecasts with their own tv cameras and commentary, but abandoned it at the end of the year as by that stage it was deemed too expensive. From 2000 until beginning of 2003, NBN went back to simulcasting the Fox/Optus coverage of Knights games not shown on Ch9. Rd 4 2003 vs Storm was the last game before the NBN arrangement with PayTV was terminated IIRC, as I can only assume that by that stage, Fox subscription base had grown quite substantially and they wanted too much money from NBN to continue using their coverage of Knights games.
Yes, Broncos fans in Brisbane have been the luckiest of all the non-Sydney teams to receive tv coverage for matches not covered by Ch9/10 Sydney. All home matches and most of their away games that Ch9/10 Sydney didn't broadcast were covered by Ch9/10 Brisbane. This occurred right up to as recently as the end of 2006. It ended with the new tv rights deal at the beginning of 2007.
To summarise everything I just typed, in addition to the usual classic matches that Fox Sports have replayed that were either broadcasted in the past by Ch9/Ch10/ABC/Fox/Optus, I'm 99.9% sure that
- NBN has archives of Knights games they broadcasted and produced during 1992-99
- WIN has archives of Cowboys home games during 1995-96
- Ch9 Perth has archives of Western Reds games during 1995-96 (called by David Morrow. All Reds away games were also covered in '95)
- Ch9 Adelaide has archives of Adelaide Rams home games from 1998 (I would love to see the Tony Iro running the ball back over the goal-line incident again, which isn't in this clip:
- Sky NZ has archives of Warriors home games since 1995
Now to other coverage of non-Sydney teams:
- I'm pretty sure Gold Coast Chargers matches were also covered by NBN. I do distinctly remember one Sunday arvo watching Canterbury vs Gold Coast at Belmore in '96 with Mike Rabbitt from NBN calling it (this was after Ch9 canned Sunday football in favour of Monday night games in the 2nd half of that year). Otherwise, I have no idea why this game was shown on NBN in the Hunter region.
- I've seen several South Queensland Crushers home games during 1995-97 that were called by Andrew Voss, albeit 1hr highlights. I can only assume this was only broadcasted into Brisbane.
- Not sure about Canberra Raiders or Illawarra Steelers matches, although I have found several of their clips with the late-Rex Mossop calling:
