NSW Rugby League boss David Trodden says the move to live stream more games across all competitions this year will be a balancing act in regional areas between increasing the exposure of the game without affecting the viability of clubs.
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After trialling live streaming games last year, NSWRL will expand that focus to making over 100 games available on their Facebook page in 2021.
Although 85,000 viewers tuned in to watch Tumut beat Young in last year's preliminary final, regional competitions such as Group Nine won't be a major focus, but Trodden confirmed the round one grand final rematch between Tumut and Gundagai will be their feature match that weekend.
"I don't think our concentration is going to be on a lot of local games, what we want to do is give people a chance to watch a game they can't usually get to," Trodden said.
"For instance, a Laurie Daley or Andrew Johns Cup game where Bidgee might be playing North Coast and people don't have the capacity to get there, matches like that feel ideal to stream.
"Tumut's celebrating their 100th anniversary so that (round one) game will be a feature game, but it won't be part of a general strategy to regularly stream regional games.
"Feature games will be mainly state or women's games, but where there's a game of significance in regional areas that will be our feature game."
Trodden said the huge numbers generated by the Blues-Cherrypickers preliminary final said there's an appetite for greater exposure of high profile regional matches.
"One thing we did find last year is there's enormous interest in regional rugby league. The numbers that game achieved in terms of viewers was every bit as strong, if not stronger, than any of the Sydney games we do," he said.
"There's a bit of a balance because what we don't want to do is negatively affect the culture of regional communities going along to footy on the weekend, and affect gate takings.
"We want to give people more access to footy, but the last thing we want to do is negatively affect the business models of regional rugby league clubs."
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