Thanks for that, goldie: and as Big Pete says, with Sommet having fallen over, if the folks in power really believe in the virtues of "free market competition", rather than just their cronies getting rich off monopolies, they would make provision of live sport more of a level playing field in NZ.
/soapbox
Nobody believes in Free Market Competition.
As many here said already, it is easier and cheaper to watch A-League elsewhere. However, this is a general symptom of our life in NZ being shackled by a couple of monopolies. It costs twice as much to build a simple home in New Zealand than a high-spec turnkey house in Germany, on today's prices, and with better workmanship in Europe. I am simply pointing out what many migrants know already, that the general public here quietly accepts shoddy quality at inflated prices. This is what creates (legal) parallel importing and makes it affordable. To my mind, accessing HAL streaming via Hola etc is fine provided I paid for it.
In response to Ryan's comment on this practice being "legal but unethical" I need to point out that my ethical or otherwise behaviour as a consumer needs to be weighed up against the business ethics of the vendor. My parallel importing of a HAL video stream would be best staved off by a better product packaging / pricing by the monopoly that sells me the product at the price they dictate (not an actual "market").
I would not be pushing a small dairy owner to get me a better deal on a bag of oats, unless i am happy with the oats having been through a horse once already. In contrast, a quasi-monopoly of two supermarket chains can afford a discount price on good oats now and then because of many factors, economy of scale being just one of them. I will shop for discounts between two different supermarket chains (at least one of two large supermarket chains offers a discount on my favourite coffee at any time, but never both of them).
Apology for an off topic rant, but this is a three-week break from the competition and I have withdrawal pains.
Actually, getting outplayed quite a bit these days