Watching the RWC in the USA
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You need to buy an NBC rugby World Cup pass as far as I am aware. https://www.nbcsports.com/gold/rugby-world-cup
I don’t have cable so that’s what I did. You can either buy a:
Gold Pass: $229 and includes 6N and a bunch of other stuff
Rugby World Cup pass: $199 and includes all RWC games
Buy each match individually for $30I bought the $199 pass but have only caught a few games due to bad timezone - all games kicking off between 1am and 6am eastern.
Sports bars may show it in some time zones - I am in NYC and all bars shut at 4am so not much hope - they generally charge $20 to watch rugby games.
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It's not looking good, unless i spend money on a pass assuming there's an app. Will be in Austin for the ABs' quarter-final and it'll kick off at 5.15am i think. I can hope the hotel has a channel i can watch it on, but that appears unlikely.
It's worse for the semis. Will be in Mexico for SF1 and 8 hours into a flight from Houston to Auckland for SF2.
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About half the matches are available on NBC Sport Network on TV, any bar and maybe hotel should have it. Pretty available channel on most cable TV packages
Link is mostly accurate. Press release I saw said two of the quarter finals will be free, two on the Gold Pass $200 app.
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@shark I’m in Austin now. Nothing going. Tried half a dozen late night bars last night without success. Someone said an Irish bar might be showing it but no luck there either. Only way of watching it is the NBC pass but it’s prohibitively expensive.
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I'm watching on ITV using NordVPN. I'm a cord cutter, and I refuse to pay $200 for RWC. I get live and streaming of virtually everything else I want, including all Super Rugby and TRC (plus NHL, etc.) for $5 per month from ESPN. In comparison, the pricing for RWC is insane.
I would happily pay a reasonable amount for access, but it's such a shameless money grab that I feel no shame myself in using alternate methods. NBC had a great opportunity to grow the game here, and they've blown it. Nobody is going to pay $200 to try a sport they don't understand and may not even like.
The only game they've shown so far on their main FTA channel was Ireland/Scotland last weekend, which was an awful mismatch. I don't expect them to displace NFL on the schedule, but today they aired lacrosse. WTF? That's way more niche than rugby!
I think the likelihood of finding it in a bar are slim, because of the time zones. Maybe in a city with an active club rugby scene, you could reach out to a club and find out if they are doing any watch parties? Or know any likely bars?
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OK so conflicting opinions there on how many matches NBC are showing FTA. I can hope the ABs' QF is shown FTA, but really, why would they do that when others have dished out $200 for the privilege? I'm surprised they even showed the game between the Celts.
I like the idea of reaching out to the local rugby community, assuming there is one. Research about to commence on this.
Rugby
