Publicans excited for Rugby World Cup plans

There’s good news for pub owners ahead of the Rugby World Cup.

As part of the plans unveiled by Spark for their world cup coverage today, commercial premises will be able to show the world cup for the same price as people watching from home.

12 of the 48 matches, including all New Zealand games will also be available free-to-air through TVNZ.

Nick Mills, who owns several Wellington bars including the iconic Sportscafe, told Larry Williams that they are pleased about it.

He says that they used to struggle when Sky owned the rights and they had to take what they were given. 

“Some of it’s been pretty hard to handle actually, it’s financially been quite crippling when for smaller bars it costs the same as larger bars.”

He says that there is a lot of interest in other games, not just the All Blacks.

“They all have their own following, so it's quite massive." 

The time-zone difference works out well for publicans, Mills says. He says that a previous football world cup in Japan meant that New Zealand got the games around 7 or 8pm at night.

"I'm hoping that it will all be the same and timings will be great for New Zealanders."

Mills says that some bars will have to get hooked up to high quality broadband, which may be a financial issue.