In Australia, if you want to watch the NRL live on a large screen (not a mobile screen), you a few options options:
1. Watch selected games on Channel Nine – The 2018 season is going to show more than usual this season thanks to a new deal between Channel Nine and the NRL.
2. Watch all games on Fox Sports, or Fox Sports Go. The cheapest plans start around $39 a month and include all the required sports channels plus the other standard Foxtel channels.
3. Use a dodgy streaming website – make sure you’re always running an ad/script blocker like uBlock Origin.
4. Use the NRL Live Pass with Bluestacks on your PC. Bluestacks is an Android emulator that you can run on your PC. The NRL Live Pass is a subscription that allows you to stream all NRL games live using the NRL App. From 2018 onwards, new deals prevent the NRL Live App from streaming Grand Final or State of Origin games – these will be available on Channel Nine anyway, so you still won’t need a Foxtel subscription.
To get the NRL Live Pass, you can pay weekly or annually, but it’s still cheaper than Foxtel either way.If you’re a Telstra Mobile customer, you will get access to the NRL Live Pass for free, and it will be un-metered (won’t count towards your data if, because net-neutrality isn’t a thing to Telstra…).
It seems that you used to be able to plug your Android phone into your TV to stream the game on a larger screen, but that stopped working at some point. Other ways to stream a phone to your TV while using the NRL App also seem to have been blocked.
The solution to this is to download Bluestacks – an Android emulator for Windows. Once installed, install the NRL App inside Android (requires a Google account), and then log in using your Telstra Account if you’re a Telstra customer, or your NRL account if you’re not a Telstra customer and purchased the NRL Live Pass.
Now you should be able to stream NRL games live. Note that the resolution on an 1920*1080 screen will look pretty average as the NRL Live Pass streaming resolution is quite low – I’ll update this post with more information if I find it. If you full screen Bluestacks, you may have to download the Set Orientation app from the App Center to force Bluestacks to use Landscape mode. From my experimentation, if you set the the resolution on Bluestacks to any higher than 1280 x 720, it will force the NRL Live Pass play box to dispaly in a small window – this is likely some kind of restriction on the NRL App itself, I’ll update this post with more info if it becomes available.
Sources:
https://www.nrl.com/nrl-app-terms-and-conditions/
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/nrl-official-app/id442363523?mt=8
https://wwos.nine.com.au/2018/02/28/19/27/nine-announce-nrl-season-coverage-for-2018-season
https://www.telstra.com.au/tv-movies-music/sports-offer