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RugbyPass TV to show live Allianz PWR matches in the 2023/24 season
By Lucy Lomax
With the 2023/24 Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) season underway, World Rugby has announced it will be live broadcasting one match per round on RugbyPass TV.
Despite the conclusion of WXV, with the PWR league boasting some of the most well-known and promising talents from England, the Home Nations and further afield in Australia, Canada and the USA, fans do not have to look far to enjoy world class women’s rugby on their screens every weekend.
World Rugby’s Chief Marketing and Content Officer James Rothwell was delighted to share the news, with the focus very much on providing a platform to showcase women’s rugby to more fans, but also giving supporters access to original content away from the pitch, which profiles the amazing characters and personalities inside the women's game.
‘PWR is such an incredible league, you’ve got 50% of the athletes that participated in the Rugby World Cup 2021 playing domestically in England so it is an incredible competition that we want to continue driving access for,’ said Rothwell.
‘Working with PWR, we’ve been able to make a marquee match of each of the 21 round available to watch live on RPTV. PWR feels like an excellent way of continuing to build our foundations in becoming that central home for women’s rugby and hopefully we can play a part in promoting the league with the reach we have around the world.
‘To have 21 match weekends, spanning five months of competition, and so many stars playing in this market is incredible and this is a part of our live programming strategy where we are managing to create stars in all of the nations represented in the competition.’
All WXV matches were shown live on RugbyPass TV throughout October and November, with Rothwell determined to keep this momentum building for the platform and the sport ahead of the Women’s World Cup in England in 2025.
‘We were delighted to make every game of WXV 1, 2 and 3 available to watch live on RPTV. We had fans from 135 countries from around the world watching WXV live and over the next two years on the road to Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025, we really want to position RPTV as the global home of women’s rugby.
‘We’re entering a seminal two year period for women’s rugby, particularly in the UK. We really believe Women’s Rugby World Cup England 2025 is going to smash all records in becoming the biggest Women’s Rugby World Cup of all time.
'We’re putting significant investment into our broadcast product, our promotion of the tournament and it’s the first World Cup to carry the new master brand. We’re coming off the back of a brilliant WXV and PWR is the vehicle to bring all of that together.
‘We want to work with PWR to drive momentum and excitement towards the World Cup, and make it as easy as possible to access our game. Because of the consolidation of rights, it means whether you’ve joined RPTV for whatever reason, you’ll be met with a much broader slate of content to consume. Making it as easy as possible to find rugby content is absolutely critical for the growth of the sport.’
Ultimately, showing PWR plays into a larger role at World Rugby of increasing exposure of fans to live rugby, but also the people behind the players we see on the pitch.
Rothwell adds: ‘You can’t fall in love with something you can see or watch, we have an incredible product in rugby, an incredibly loyal fan base, but moments like the men’s Rugby World Cup France 2023 demonstrate how many casual fans there are to waiting to enter that sport and fall in love with it.
‘We also want to be the ultimate champions and promotional vehicle for the game as well. Building access is key, building relevance and storytelling is really important for rugby, and we’re continuing to innovate with our digital products. We want to make sport unmissable and want to make sure we’re winning that attention battle against other sports.
‘If rugby works together and continues to create central platforms for fans to watch, I have no doubt we will be able to double or triple the size of the rugby fan base over the next couple of years and have no doubt that by Rugby World Cup 2025 is going to feel like a major global sporting moment with full stadiums, a real broadcast product and real stars that we’ve managed to build over the last couple of years.’
RugbyPass TV is available to download on mobile and tablet app and watch through Smart TV and Chromecast.
Live PWR matches being shown on RPTV in 2023:
Sunday 26 November - Exeter Chiefs v Bristol Bears
Sunday 3 December - Leicester Tigers v Loughborough Lightning
Saturday 9 December - Harlequins v Exeter Chiefs
Saturday 16 December - Exeter Chiefs v Gloucester-Hartpury
*Excluding the UK, Ireland, USA and Canada
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Latest Comments
There were signs of steroid use throughout all divisions of the All-Ireland League through the 1990s, and even down to the provincial junior and Under 20 leagues.Ireland’s rugby dressing rooms and clubhouses were awash with rumours and speculation and several names kept cropping up – some of them very high profile at the time. Top of the ‘most likely’ list were the lads who had an extended period off the pitch due to injury and came back with completely different body shapes.
Go to commentsWhy would you think they would?
Haha look who's talking! Hello? Can you just read what you wrote about Leinster to yourself again please lol
I'm really not sure why you're making this point. Do you think Ireland are a better team than the All Blacks, where those players would have been straight in? This is like ground hog day the movie with you. Can you not remember much of the discussions, having so many readers/commentors? Yup, 26/7/8 would have been the perfect age for them to have been capped by NZ as well.
Actually, they would obviously have been capped given an opportunity earlier (where they were ineligible to for Ireland).
TTT, who was behind JGP at the Hurricanes, got three AB caps after a couple of further seasons acting as a backup SR player, once JGP left of course. In case you didn't see yourself contradicting your own comments above, JGP was just another player who became first choice for Ireland while 2nd (or even 3rd/outside the 23 in recent cases) for Leinster. And fair enough, no one is suggesting JGP would have surpassed TJP in three or four years either. He would have been an All Black though, and unlike in your Leinster example, similar performances from him would have seen TJP move on earlier to make way for him. Not limited him like he was in Ireland. That's just the advantage of the way they can only afford so many. Hell, one hit wonders like Seta Tamanivalu and Malakai Fekitoa got rocketed into the jersey at the time.
So not just him. Aki and Lowe both would have had opportunities, as you must know has been pointed out by now. It's true that the adversity of having to move to Ireland added a nice bit of mongrel to their game though, along with their typical development.
Aki looked comfortable as the main 12 in his first two seasons, he was fortunate SBW went back to league for a season you could say, but as a similar specialist he ultimate had to give the spot back again on his return. There's certainly no doubt he would have returned and flourished with coachs like Rennie, Wayne Smith, and Andrew Strawbridge, even Tom Coventry. All fair for him to take up an immediate contract instead of wait a year of course though.
It's just whatever the point of your comments are meant to make, your idea that these players wouldn't have achieved high honors in NZ is simply very shortsighted and simplistic. I can only think you are making incorrect conclusions about this topic because of this mistake. As a fan, Aki was looking to be the Nonu replacement for me, but instead the country had the likes of Laumape trying to fill those boots with him available. Ditto with Lowe once Rieko moved to center.
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