NeuLion Digital Platform presence expands in Asia with Rugby

Roy Reichbach, NeuLion’s president and CEO

From the World Rugby Conference and Exhibition currently taking place in London, NeuLion has announced an expanded partnership with Coliseum Sports Media to deliver live and on-demand rugby action throughout Asia on RugbyPass, an OTT service, powered by the NeuLion Digital Platform.

“Under the theme ‘The future of rugby’, the World Rugby Conference, which attracts more than 700 delegates and 40 exhibitors from over 50 countries around the world, is the perfect platform to announce our expanded partnership with Coliseum Sports Media and promote the RugbyPass OTT service,” said Chris Wagner, NeuLion’s executive vice-president of Marketplace Strategy.

RugbyPass is the premier online destination for rugby fans in Asia and is the exclusive rights-holder in the region for this month’s Autumn Internationals. Every match on RugbyPass is available live and on-demand in HD quality and RugbyPass includes year-round action from International Test Matches, the Rugby Championship, Super Rugby and more on multiple internet-connected devices.

RugbyPass is currently available in the following 23 countries throughout Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, East Timor, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

“Asia and China have a significant role to play in rugby’s future,” says Tim Martin, CEO of Coliseum Sports Media. “Our recent partnership between NeuLion, World Rugby and Alisports, Singapore’s return to the World Rugby Sevens circuit, the participation of the Sunwolves in this year’s Super Rugby, and the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan,  all point to an exciting future for the game in terms of participation as well as viewer engagement.”

Rugby Pass is powered by The NeuLion Digital Platform, a fully managed end-to-end platform providing licensed components from content ingestion, encoding and management to content security, monetisation and monitoring that together streamline the content delivery process. The platform facilitates the streaming and sharing of high-quality content up to Ultra HD/4K for premium sports and entertainment brands worldwide.

“The inclusion of rugby at the Olympics, after a gap of 92 years, is testament to how far the sport has come in the past three decades,” said Roy Reichbach, NeuLion’s president and CEO. “Rugby in Asia has a fantastic fan base. We are excited about our growing partnership with Coliseum Sports Media, its access to rugby content rights and the strength of our digital technology platform for delivering OTT services. This is a great partnership for NeuLion as we begin our growth in Asia.”