Big League

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Big League is the official magazine of the National Rugby League and that of the NRL's forerunners, the New South Wales Rugby League and Australian Rugby League competitions. Its predecessor, The Rugby League News was first published in 1920; in 1974 it was rebadged as Big League.

It also serves as a game-day program, containing team line-ups and stats. It goes on sale every Thursday at newsagents and exclusively at all active NRL grounds at weekends. With every issue there is also a copy of "Little League", a 16-page mini-magazine aimed at pre-teen league fans and packed with puzzles, competitions and player profiles. Since 2005 it has been published by News Magazines; previously it had been published by Text Magazines and Pacific Magazines.

2007 Schedule: The A5-sized 2007 Season Guide will be on sale Feb 21, followed by the glossy Season Preview (Mar 5) then 28 weekly issues of Big League, between Mar 15 and Sep 20. The 100-page Grand Final Souvenir goes on sale Sep 27 and the Year In Review issue on Oct 4. There will be an Australia v NZ Test Match special issue, only on sale at the game on Apr 20, plus a special issue for each of the State of Origin games - these go on sale on the Monday before each game. The 2007 Official Rugby League Annual, a high quality 228-page must-have keepsake for the game's aficionados, will be on sale in early Dec.

The Editor is Nigel Wall, formerly of Inside Sport and ALPHA magazine; the National Advertising Manager is Mike Bartlett, formerly of The Daily & Sunday Telegraph, That's Life! and TV Week magazines.

• As the official NRL magazine, it has sometimes been open to accusations of bias towards the NRL. An example of this would be the way South Sydney fans feel the magazine was printing negative articles towards it, in the latter stages of the '99 season, supposedly trying to convince them to merge and save the NRL the inevitable court case that did indeed follow the Rabbitohs temporary exclusion.