Fox Sports launches rugby league channel

Fox Sports has launched a channel dedicated to the top division of rugby league in Australia, the National Rugby League, exclusively on pay-television broadcaster Foxtel.

The previous channel, Fox Sports 502 will become Fox League on February 20, with all programming starting on February 27 before the first round of the NRL Premiership kicks off on March 2.

There will be more than 32 hours of live content every week on the 24-hour channel.

In addition to Fox League showing all eight NRL matches each week, nine magazine shows, including four pre-match and post-match programmes will feature on the channel.

In November 2015, Fox Sports and the Telstra telecommunications company acquired NRL rights in a five-year deal from 2018 to 2022.

Nine retained domestic free-to-air rights for the NRL in August 2015 in a deal worth Aus$185m (€133m/$141m) per season over the five-year cycle.

The deals with Fox Sports and Telstra in 2015 pushed the overall value of the cycle to $1.8bn – a 70-per-cent increase on the previous cycle with the same partners.