Fox Sports has the nice mix of giggles and analysis

When the NRL negotiates new broadcasting deals or juggles how their current broadcast deal looks, as was the case last year, little ol' Aotearoa is often forgotten. That's to be expected as Australia doesn't worry itself with Aotearoa in general, let alone how we consume the NRL but 2016 has seen a bit of a change in our NRL coverage which has only enhanced our viewing experience.

It's important to note that the Australian media landscape has the rather strange concept of free-to-air channels being major players when competing for broadcasting rights. Channels 7, 9 and 10 all broadcast live sport that brings in large audiences and then of course there's Fox Sports who are major players as well. Aotearoa only really has Sky Sport with free-to-air channels largely ignoring live sport in general and if they do get amongst it, it's restricted to delayed coverage or sports that draw a smaller audience.

All our NRL coverage is funneled through Sky Sport and this season we have enjoyed the benefits of this. The main change this year has been that we now get every NRL game via Fox Sports which was part of the revised broadcasting deal as Fox and Channel 9 now share coverage of games that used to be exclusively reserved for Channel 9. It's all personal preference as to which commentary team and pre/post-game coverage you prefer, if you loved Channel 9's crew of Peter Sterling, Phil Gould, Paul Vautin, Ray Hadley etc then you'd be bummed but I have come to enjoy Fox's team much more than I ever liked 9's crew.

A lot of this is thanks to Andrew Voss, who is enjoying a resurgence with Fox's rise after spending a long time with 9. Voss makes watching footy fun while also dishing up pearls of wisdom that inform/educate the view and his supporting cast of Mark Gasnier, Greg Alexander, Braith Anasta, Andy Raymond and Mark Warren generally have a younger feel to them, which I enjoy.

Voss leads The Sunday Ticket which has flipped the Sunday viewing experience on its head as Sunday used to be Nine's territory. Fox's peripheral content dominates during the week as well with NRL 360 and Monday Night With Matty Johns astronomically better that Nine's Footy Show, which is in desperate need of a revamp. The Footy Show used to be a staple in my weekly viewing, however with better options that focus more on actual footy and less on providing fluff for kids/fringe NRL fans along with the general vibe of trying far too hard to be semi-cool, means I skip the Footy Show without issue.

Us kiwis do get the luxury of choice still which can't be slept on. I chose not to watch the Footy Show, it's still there for those who enjoy it and Nine's Sunday Footy Show also gets a run on Sundays. Overall, we get a pretty nice deal as we get a fairly similar experience in consuming the NRL as Aussies do.

What has been a big plus for the NRL is the sheer volume of NRL coverage and we are graced with the luxury of having some sort of NRL coverage every damn day of the week. Games are played Thursday-Monday which puts an NRL game on Thursday and Monday nights, when rival codes have very little on in Aotearoa and then we are graced with the peripheral shows on Tuesday and Wednesday when there are no games. If you don't want to watch the pre/post-game shows, then you can just catch the game Thursday through Monday and if you want the extras, there's plenty of extras.

As the consumers of all this, we are the ultimate winners which is great as we get an un-matched viewing experience in Aotearoa and Australia. It's also interesting to note that Fox Sports has leap-frogged Nine, pumping far more resource into actually getting more NRL coverage as well as flooding the market with its own content.