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OPINIONSportsSeptember 26, 2023

Friendship ended with Sky Sport. Now Rabbitholebd Sports is my best friend

Production editor
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How to watch the Black Caps vs Bangladesh for free – and why YouTube is actually the best live sports streaming platform.

New Zealand Cricket nerds hoping to watch the first match of the Black Caps’ pre-World Cup ODI series against Bangladesh last week were out of luck – not only was it rained off, it wasn’t available on either of the cricket’s two usual homes, Sky Sport or TVNZ+*. 

Neither was the second match, but by then plenty of savvy Black Caps fans had discovered the workaround: an account called “Rabbitholebd Sports” was streaming the series for free on YouTube. 

Despite sounding like the most illegal and pop-up-riddled sports streaming website ever invented, Rabbitholebd Sports (“Top sports platform in the territory of Bangladesh”) is in fact the series’ official Bangladesh rights holder, and its YouTube (8.9 million subscribers) is totally legit. Not only that, the viewing experience is easier and better than if they were streaming on Sky Sport Now, TVNZ+ or just about any other bespoke sports streaming platform. 

Watching live, the games play smoothly and with an image quality good enough for all but the most punishing audiovisual purists. If you miss a wicket, it’s easy to scroll back in the broadcast without bringing the whole stream to a grinding, buffering halt. It’s easy to play on the TV, either through the widely-available YouTube app or by casting from a phone or laptop.

If you missed the second ODI live – if, indeed, this is your first time ever hearing about Rabbitholebd Sports – then you can still enjoy a smorgasbord of highlights. Here, again, this humble YouTube account outperforms the Black Caps’ usual streamers. Aside from the 20-minute match highlights, there’s another highlights video with just the wickets, along with packages dedicated to individual batting or bowling performances – you can watch a two-minute package of Tom Blundell’s 68 with the bat, for example, or Ish Sodhi’s career-best six-wickets with the ball.

From a user perspective, YouTube is pretty much the best live sports streaming platform available right now. Beyond the Black Caps vs Bangladesh, there’s a surprising amount of live sport to be found there, mostly on an if-you-know-you-know basis. (I only recently discovered the Asian Champions League and Uefa Women’s Champions League are live on YouTube. There’s probably plenty of other sports that aren’t football too.)

Basically, YouTube has every feature you need for live sports and none you don’t. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s Fifa Plus – the new home of New Zealand men’s and women’s National League football, as well as All Whites and Football Ferns friendlies.

Prior to this season, if you wanted to watch shaky single-camera coverage from barren suburban playing fields or be blinded by the sheen of an artificial turf pitch, your options were limited to one or two games a week on the NZ Football YouTube account. Me and the 200 or so other people who’d watch the games didn’t know how good we had it.

Having live streams of every National League game is, on paper, a dream come true for the New Zealand football tragic – but as with most Fifa products, Fifa Plus sure knows how to take the fun out of it. 

It’s free to sign up and relatively simple to find the NZ Football landing page, and AirPlaying the stream to the TV is possible, if not entirely angst-free (the Fifa Plus TV app is available “on select Smart TVs”). But if you miss a goal and need to rewind the stream a few minutes? Somehow not possible on phone or laptop. Want to go back and rewatch the moment Hannah Wilkinson earned a red card for striking the assistant referee? You have to wait for the full match replay to be uploaded after the game.

Fifa has paid who-knows-how-many millions of dollars for a bespoke sports streaming platform where it’s impossible to do something as simple as rewind a live match. They should have just followed the Rabbitholebd Sports model: chuck it up on YouTube for free and give the people what they want.

(* TVNZ+ currently holds the rights to all domestic and international cricket played in New Zealand. Sky Sport usually has the Black Caps’ overseas internationals.)

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The author at this morning’s editorial meeting (Image: Tina Tiller)
The author at this morning’s editorial meeting (Image: Tina Tiller)

SportsSeptember 18, 2023

How do the NRL finals work? And what do the Warriors need to do to win?

Production editor
The author at this morning’s editorial meeting (Image: Tina Tiller)
The author at this morning’s editorial meeting (Image: Tina Tiller)

The Warriors have won their first finals match since 2011, forcing some casual fans to grapple with the NRL finals system for the very first time. Here’s how it all works.

Who is this explainer for?

Despite being told “it’s actually very simple”, “you can just Google it” and “here, read this Wikipedia entry”, several of my colleagues remain completely mystified by the NRL finals system. This explainer is for them and all others who find themselves in the same boat.

How do the NRL finals work then?

There are currently 17 teams in the NRL. At the end of the regular season, the top eight teams qualify for the finals. 

The finals series takes place over four weeks. In week one, the top four teams play qualifying finals (1 vs 4, 2 vs 3) and the bottom four play elimination finals (5 vs 8, 6 vs 7). 

The teams that win the two qualification finals advance straight to the preliminary finals in week three. The teams they beat play the winners of the elimination finals in the semi-finals in week two. And the losers of the elimination finals are – you guessed it – eliminated.

Where do the Warriors fit into all this?

The Warriors finished the 2023 regular season in fourth, so they played a qualifying final against the number-one-ranked Panthers. They lost that game 32-6. That meant in week two, they played a semi-final against the Knights, who finished the regular season fifth and beat the eighth-placed Raiders in their elimination final. They won that game 40-10. Up the Wahs.

Up the Wahs (Photo: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)

Up the Wahs. What now?

The Warriors now play a preliminary final against the Broncos – who beat the Storm in their qualifying final in week one – in Brisbane on Saturday night. If they win this game then they progress to week four: the grand final.

But didn’t they already win the semi-final?

I’ll admit the naming of the various finals stages is a little bit confusing.

There should be some kind of chart that shows all this…

I actually think visualising this data might be what’s putting people wrong, because every chart features criss-crossing lines that make it look more complicated than it is. But here’s one the NRL prepared in paid partnership with KFC Australia.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just have good old-fashioned quarters, semis and final?

There are two main arguments for the current NRL finals system. The first is that it rewards teams for finishing in the top four by giving them a double chance. The other and probably more compelling argument is that it makes the finals series longer (nine games instead of seven, four weeks instead of three) which equals more tickets and TV ads sold, which equals more money for the NRL etc. 

Has it always been like this?

More or less. This finals system has been in place since 2012 – the last time the Warriors made it beyond the first week of the finals was in 2011, which might explain why it all seems so unfamiliar. But the Warriors’ two grand final appearances to date (2002 and 2011) were under the even more convoluted McIntyre System.

More Reading

What time does the Warriors vs Broncos NRL preliminary final kick off?

The NZ Warriors vs Brisbane Broncos NRL preliminary final is scheduled to kick off at 9.50pm NZT on Saturday September 23.

Where can I watch the Warriors vs Broncos NRL preliminary final?

It’s live on Sky Sport and will be shown at pretty much every pub in New Zealand. The free-to-air Sky Open (the channel formerly known as Prime) has delayed coverage of the match starting at 11pm.

Who will the Warriors face in the grand final if they win?

The other preliminary final is on Friday night between the Panthers and the Storm, but please. Remember when the Australian media spent the week before the Matildas’ World Cup semi-final loss fixating on whether or not to have a public holiday if they won the final? There is no surer way to curse a team than by talking about the final before you’ve even played the semi, or in this case, preliminary final.