This might be a very privileged take of mine but given the number of NRL/AFL games behind a paywall at Fox, would rugby really be that inaccessible if we went back? Most people I know have a kayo subscription and prefer the Fox NRL coverage to Nine.
it’d be interesting to see the % of households with a Kayo subscription. If you really want to follow the AFL or NRL it’s a non-negotiable that you pay your $30/month. Especially if your team rarely gets the big ticket time slots.
The argument isnt about whether having Union back with Fox/Kayo gets you more eyeballs (it most likely does), it's whether Rugby in Australia is better off on Fox or Stan.
We have decades worth of evidence to show us how Fox ran Union when theyg had it and now we have a couple years of coverage on Stan.
It is night and day which platform puts our game in a better light. That will have a bigger impact on the casuals wanting to watch something.
Additionally, most of the casual viewers that have fox will most likely be watching NRL or AFL, so you're talking about a tiny percentage of people who may casually watch Union over another sport. So, with that in mind, why do we drop the product to a sub optimal one on the odd chance we may get a dozen or so extra eyeballs?
Anyway, I think it's a mute point. Most people have more than one streaming platform, Stan just needs to show why people should choose it over Netflix, Amazon or one of the other major tv/movie streamers.