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Wildcats have never been bigger and more popular, despite failing to make the finals for the first time in 35 years. They routinely play in front of sell-out crowds. There aren't many tickets available for the Bullets. Sydney are playing in front of 11k fans at the Super Dome. Breakers are drawing great crowds in Auckland. The only games that have a drop in attendance are the ones played on Thursday and Monday nights.
That's your opinion.
Here's an article from the ABC highlighting the game's declining participation and cultural relevance.
You said NBL wasn't on FTA at all and was only on streaming. You were wrong on both accounts.
Most A-League games are on 10Bold and it's only one game a week. Two NBL games are on 10Peach each Sunday . So that's another incorrect assumption you've dressed up as a fact.
You're not practicing what you preach. First you belittled the standard of the NBL and assumed it's of lower quality than the European competitions. That was an assumption you dressed up as fact as sit is demonstrably false, as the NBL is considered by many experts from the NBA clubs and commentators to be second only to the NBA in playing standard.
You also claimed Australia's best players head to Europe if they cannot get into the NBA. This is another incorrect assumption you dressed up as fact. The NBL has become the preferred pathway to the NBA for Australians, Asians, Americans and an increasing number of Europeans. There are plenty of experienced NBA players using the NBL to get back into the NBA and turning down bigger offers from Europe to do it.
You made these incorrect assumptions as "proof" that the NBL will always be a niche product in Australia. To sum it up, you don't know what you're talking about.
Many of them do watch it and make up a very large segment of NBL fans. The Chinese and Philippino community in Australia is only going to get bigger through immigration. I don't see many of them at the cricket.
I hardly don’t know a lebo who isn’t a league fan
Indians and Nepalese strong cricket fans
Hopefully more and more people are waking up that its not glamorous to whip a horse to run so fast it risks its heart exploding. Just so people can bet money and maybe make some coin. Shtty industry.
Rugby League World Cup 2021 has broken yet more records on its way towards becoming the biggest, best and most inclusive tournament in rugby league’s history, with broadcast figures up until Sunday 6 November showing a domestic cumulative match average of more than 18.7million – making it the most watched Rugby League World Cup ever.
Every minute of every match to date has been broadcast live on the BBC, with England men’s quarter final clash with Papua New Guinea the first game to average over 1.5 million viewers in recording a peak of 1.7million viewers, a figure only beaten on the opening match of the tournament when a peak of 1.8 million tuned into see England beat Samoa.
In the women’s and wheelchair tournaments, which are running simultaneously with the men’s game for the first time ever, both England teams have also attracted big audiences with an average of 0.5 million viewers apiece, with England women’s game against Canada and England wheelchair team’s game against Australia proving to be the most popular matches so far with both reaching a peak of over 700,000.
The latest weekend of action was by far the biggest so far with a domestic terrestrial audience for Saturday and Sunday’s fixtures reach 3.7million, with digital and online figures bringing that up to 4.3 million.
The record viewing figures are being underpinned by record-breaking crowds for the sport too, with the attendance at the DW Stadium breaking the all-time record for a Rugby League World Cup Quarter-Final match as 23,179 people passed through the turnstiles in Wigan.
At the Copper Box Arena, the world record for attendance has twice been broken with 3,268 people in watching England’s Wheelchair team defeat Spain, increasing the record which was set just a few days before in the opening double header on Thursday 3 November. Similarly, the first game for England Women achieved the ambition of being the most attended women’s rugby league game in the northern hemisphere with 8,621 people making a great atmosphere inside Headingley Stadium as the home nation overcame Brazil.
RLWC2021 Becomes Most Watched Rugby League World Cup in History
www.rlwc2021.com
NBL is only a niche product, but it has room to grow. Whether it does or not is another story and odds are it will never be mainstream, but I'm enjoying it and recommend others give it a go. There's some great athletes in it.
