Figures released by the RFL show that our Betfred League 1 Promotion Final against Newcastle Thunder generated 30,000 unique viewers on Twitch.
A ground-breaking partnership between the Rugby Football League (RFL) and Twitch has been hailed a resounding success by both partners at their end of season review.
The RFL this year became UK sport’s first national governing body to screen fixtures live through Twitch’s streaming service, launching the partnership with the Betfred Women’s Super League opener between Wigan and St Helens in April, and concluding 2019’s coverage with the Women’s Grand Final between Castleford and Leeds.
Women’s Rugby League featured strongly on Twitch throughout 2019, with matches from every round of the Coral Women’s Challenge Cup alongside a range of other competitions broadcast jointly with Our League app, including the Academy Origin series, Betfred League One and the AB Sundecks 1895 Cup.
Mark Foster, the RFL’s Chief Commercial Officer, said:
“We were excited to announce in April that we would be working closely with Twitch to promote the sport to a new, younger audience and that’s what we’ve done. Twitch have been very supportive of Rugby League, streaming dramatic games such as the Leigh versus Widnes AB Sundecks Cup semi-final.
“More recently Oldham’s League 1 play-off final with Newcastle generated 30,000 unique viewers on Twitch, while the Betfred Women’s Super League Grand Final received over 15,000 live views on Twitch and thousands more on Sky Sports.
“It is having the Our League app that gives us the content to broadcast through completely new communities such as Twitch. That AB Sundecks 1895 Cup semi-final gave us a season’s best 8,399 viewers for a club match on Our League and we now have more than 120,000 members.
“Alongside Twitch and Our League we have seen many more Betfred Championship matches broadcast by Sky Sports, with very encouraging viewing figures – especially for Sunday evening fixtures. The game as a whole can approach the close season with confidence.”
Twitch is a video live streaming service operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.
