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Collude at your peril: NRL chief warns Nine, Foxtel
Zoe Samios
Zoe SamiosBusiness reporter
Oct 1, 2025 – 5.00am
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Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys has warned Nine Entertainment and Foxtel against teaming up to bid for the next broadcast rights, which he claims will be the biggest media deal in Australian sport.
The NRL is planning to formally commence broadcast negotiations once rugby league’s Ashes Test series in England concludes in November. V’landys said he would take the football code elsewhere if incumbent broadcasters Nine and Foxtel submitted a joint bid.
Broncos star Adam Reynolds in the NRL final. ARLC chairman Peter V’landys remains confident he can secure a record broadcast deal for the NRL. Getty Images
“If they collude, it will be at their peril,” he told The Australian Financial Review. “We will take the rights elsewhere. If they think they can behave as monopolists, they will be in for a shock.”
V’landys is confident rugby league can strike a deal bigger than the $4.5 billion agreement signed by the AFL in September 2022 but said no deal would come at the expense of fans, either through having more games behind a paywall or higher prices charged by pay-TV operator Foxtel and its streaming service, Kayo Sports.
“The deal will be record-breaking because we built the game up and doubled our audience,” V’landys said.
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The NRL is aired by Nine and Foxtel, who paid $1.7 billion for rights that expire in 2027. The code is much stronger financial position than when the deal was signed – it reported revenue of $744 million in 2024 and an operating surplus of $62.3 million. The Brisbane Broncos and Melbourne Storm play in the NRL grand final on Sunday night at Sydney’s Accor Stadium.
“If you think about free-to-air, it’s all news, sport, and reality TV. It needs sport for the future of the business.”
— Peter V’landys, ARLC chairman
Viewership has also increased, making the sport more appealing to advertisers and broadcasters. The number of people aged 16-39 watching the NRL on Thursdays and Fridays climbed 18 per cent and 27 per cent respectively, while total NRL TV audiences are on track to be up 9 per cent year-on-year, including finals.
“Our strategy of waiting is the right one,” V’landys said. “The NRL is in a premium position right now.”
The AFL deal is the most expensive in Australian history, but a like-for-like comparison with a potential NRL deal is difficult. The AFL currently involves one more team than the NRL competition, and is easier to commercialise because its games are high scoring and run longer than NRL matches.
High-point scoring games allow for more advertising breaks – media figures estimate broadcasters can receive double the advertising revenue from the AFL based solely on the way the game runs.
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Another challenge for V’landys and his chief executive, Andrew Abdo, is that the AFL deal was struck in 2022 when the advertising market was less challenged and established media companies weren’t trying to offset the decline with rising costs.
“Free-to-air television needs sport more than ever,” V’landys said when asked about the structural headwinds facing Nine (which owns the Financial Review), Seven and Ten. “Paramount, Amazon, and Netflix have taken content away from free-to-air.
“If you think about free-to-air, it’s all news, sport, and reality TV. It needs sport for the future of the business.”
Live sport still brings millions of viewers to a television network, which is important for advertisers who want mass reach. The NRL preliminary final between the Broncos and the Panthers had 1.8 million viewers on Sunday – the highest non-grand final rating for Nine.
V’landys was sceptical about putting more matches behind a paywall. He referenced a May report in The Age, which looked at audience figures for Saturday night AFL matches. Additional live and exclusive Saturday coverage was a key component of Foxtel’s newest AFL deal and one of the main drivers of revenue growth.
The Age obtained data indicating the AFL had lost viewers as a result of the new deal. One example showed just 10,000 viewers had watched Seven’s coverage of the Swans-Essendon match on a 90-minute delay. Previously, that audience would have been between 60,000 and 90,000.
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The most likely suitor
Analysis by the Financial Review suggests the average audience on Kayo Sports only increased a little over 20,000 in the regular season.
This analysis does not present the full picture as it does not include how many people watch matches via Fox Footy on Foxtel. Subscriber figures are also not publicly available – Kayo Sports’ last public subscriber figures were 1.5 million as of September 2024.
Foxtel declined to comment.
Nine is not the only free-to-air television broadcaster in Australia, but it is the NRL’s most likely suitor. It has held the rights for decades and its assets, including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, make it appealing for sports that want broad coverage. Lachlan Murdoch’s media business, News Corp, is no longer a shareholder in Foxtel.
An alternative is the Kerry Stokes-controlled Seven West Media, which announced a merger with radio company Southern Cross Media on Tuesday.
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Some media figures believe this deal means an NRL bid is off the cards for Seven and will therefore reduce market tension. Others, such as Seven shareholder Matthew Booker, think it works in the company’s favour.
Peter V’landys said he wants to protect fans from paying large sums of money to watch NRL matches. Hamish Hastie
Few think the NRL would ever seriously do a deal with Paramount, the owner of Channel Ten. Channel Ten broadcasts Matildas and Socceroos matches and the local football competition, the A-League, but has struggled to compete against its major free-to-air rivals for content and technology.
V’landys said a deal with Ten would include a minimum standards requirement that would make sure it was up to scratch for fans.
“If I were CEO, I’d be throwing everything at the NRL. The NRL would fix its problem. You need a foundational powerhouse,” he said.
Australia’s three television networks may be interested, but they all face a similar challenge; managing costs at a time when the advertising market is challenged.
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Two new teams
A proposed breakaway rugby union league, known as R360, is also threatening to take some of the NRL’s best players, including Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Ryan Papenhuyzen.
The competition, fronted by Mike Tindall, has already completed an initial funding round. The loss of high-profile players from the NRL would also affect the value of any deal.
“Anything that doesn’t have a business model or a backer, you can’t take seriously,” he said. “Who’s to say that [players] are not using this R360 as a stalking horse to get more money?”
Discussions about the next NRL deal, which will commence in 2028, are focused on two areas: how the rights will be split and how much they are worth. The former will most likely determine the latter, but both will also be determined by fixtures and any major changes to schedules, such as a move from a nighttime grand final to daytime.
The days and times that matches are played often change the rates advertisers are willing to pay. The NRL’s new deal will include two new teams, the Perth Bears and a Papua New Guinea side, both of which add new time zones to the mix and potential upside for advertisers.
Advertisement
‘Think of the fans’
Many major scheduling decisions are up in the air, but V’landys is clear on two: splitting State of Origin from the main NRL series is not a “preferred option”, and the NRL must be on the main television channel in every state, not a secondary channel, as happens to some AFL matches.
At a press conference on Tuesday, he also indicated he was open to more Sunday matches. He argues the time slot gives the sport “clear air” against codes such as the AFL and rugby union.
One of the other decisions will be how many games should go behind a paywall. Kayo Sports and Stan Sport are local subscription services, but international streaming giants such as Amazon Prime Video and ESPN+ have far deeper pockets to bid for rights if they choose to.
V’landys said whatever happened, he did not want his fans to have to pay more to watch games.
About 70 per cent of the AFL’s new deal comes from Foxtel. The new agreement commenced this year and coincided with $5 increase to Kayo Sports’ standard and premium packages (they now cost between $30 and $40 per month).
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V’landys said he would find money in international markets rather than bumping up the cost to watch the NRL for Australian fans.
“NRL customers are already paying more for subscriptions as naturally Foxtel and Kayo have increased subscriptions due to the increase in payments to the AFL,” he said.
“Customers need to be able to afford the NRL. We are looking at making money from extra markets – New Zealand, England, the United States, and Papua New Guinea. We don’t want our fans in Australia paying more to watch rugby league.”
The last time Nine struck a deal with the NRL was in late 2021 after it had launched sports streaming service, Stan Sport. At the time, subscription broadcast rights were already tied up with Foxtel.
Nine and Foxtel have a long history of working together on broadcast deals across a range of sports, including cricket. Most recently, they put together a joint bid for the Rugby League World Cup, but the rights were reportedly handed to Seven West Media for about $12 million.
Foxtel was then owned by News Corp and Telstra, but this year it was acquired by Dazn, a Saudi-backed global streaming giant. People familiar with Foxtel’s thinking but not authorised to speak publicly say the NRL remains critical to the long-term future of the service in Australia.
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Posturing is underway
But they argue there is also potential for Dazn to deploy a global strategy and help the NRL with its long-term ambitions.
Sources close to Nine, who similarly requested anonymity to speak freely about confidential discussions, said the media giant would consider an NRL offer that would include Stan Sport, but it just depends on price.
V’landys warned against the two companies working together.
Public posturing is typical of any broadcast negotiation, and the lead-up to the NRL talks has been no different. The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield wrote this week that V’landys had sent a letter to Nine complaining that it was covering too much AFL.
A week earlier, the Herald reported Seven had struck a deal for the Rugby League World Cup. Seven’s newspaper, The West Australia,n said last week the deal had not been signed by the board, but the very act of choosing an alternative broadcaster was seen by most as a way to put pressure on the incumbents.
Advertisement
Companies
Sport
Business of sport
Collude at your peril: NRL chief warns Nine, Foxtel
Zoe Samios
Zoe SamiosBusiness reporter
Oct 1, 2025 – 5.00am
Save
Share
Gift this article
Listen to this article
10 min
Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys has warned Nine Entertainment and Foxtel against teaming up to bid for the next broadcast rights, which he claims will be the biggest media deal in Australian sport.
The NRL is planning to formally commence broadcast negotiations once rugby league’s Ashes Test series in England concludes in November. V’landys said he would take the football code elsewhere if incumbent broadcasters Nine and Foxtel submitted a joint bid.
Broncos star Adam Reynolds in the NRL final. ARLC chairman Peter V’landys remains confident he can secure a record broadcast deal for the NRL. Getty Images
“If they collude, it will be at their peril,” he told The Australian Financial Review. “We will take the rights elsewhere. If they think they can behave as monopolists, they will be in for a shock.”
V’landys is confident rugby league can strike a deal bigger than the $4.5 billion agreement signed by the AFL in September 2022 but said no deal would come at the expense of fans, either through having more games behind a paywall or higher prices charged by pay-TV operator Foxtel and its streaming service, Kayo Sports.
“The deal will be record-breaking because we built the game up and doubled our audience,” V’landys said.
Advertisement
The NRL is aired by Nine and Foxtel, who paid $1.7 billion for rights that expire in 2027. The code is much stronger financial position than when the deal was signed – it reported revenue of $744 million in 2024 and an operating surplus of $62.3 million. The Brisbane Broncos and Melbourne Storm play in the NRL grand final on Sunday night at Sydney’s Accor Stadium.
“If you think about free-to-air, it’s all news, sport, and reality TV. It needs sport for the future of the business.”
— Peter V’landys, ARLC chairman
Viewership has also increased, making the sport more appealing to advertisers and broadcasters. The number of people aged 16-39 watching the NRL on Thursdays and Fridays climbed 18 per cent and 27 per cent respectively, while total NRL TV audiences are on track to be up 9 per cent year-on-year, including finals.
“Our strategy of waiting is the right one,” V’landys said. “The NRL is in a premium position right now.”
The AFL deal is the most expensive in Australian history, but a like-for-like comparison with a potential NRL deal is difficult. The AFL currently involves one more team than the NRL competition, and is easier to commercialise because its games are high scoring and run longer than NRL matches.
High-point scoring games allow for more advertising breaks – media figures estimate broadcasters can receive double the advertising revenue from the AFL based solely on the way the game runs.
Advertisement
Another challenge for V’landys and his chief executive, Andrew Abdo, is that the AFL deal was struck in 2022 when the advertising market was less challenged and established media companies weren’t trying to offset the decline with rising costs.
“Free-to-air television needs sport more than ever,” V’landys said when asked about the structural headwinds facing Nine (which owns the Financial Review), Seven and Ten. “Paramount, Amazon, and Netflix have taken content away from free-to-air.
“If you think about free-to-air, it’s all news, sport, and reality TV. It needs sport for the future of the business.”
Live sport still brings millions of viewers to a television network, which is important for advertisers who want mass reach. The NRL preliminary final between the Broncos and the Panthers had 1.8 million viewers on Sunday – the highest non-grand final rating for Nine.
V’landys was sceptical about putting more matches behind a paywall. He referenced a May report in The Age, which looked at audience figures for Saturday night AFL matches. Additional live and exclusive Saturday coverage was a key component of Foxtel’s newest AFL deal and one of the main drivers of revenue growth.
The Age obtained data indicating the AFL had lost viewers as a result of the new deal. One example showed just 10,000 viewers had watched Seven’s coverage of the Swans-Essendon match on a 90-minute delay. Previously, that audience would have been between 60,000 and 90,000.
Advertisement
The most likely suitor
Analysis by the Financial Review suggests the average audience on Kayo Sports only increased a little over 20,000 in the regular season.
This analysis does not present the full picture as it does not include how many people watch matches via Fox Footy on Foxtel. Subscriber figures are also not publicly available – Kayo Sports’ last public subscriber figures were 1.5 million as of September 2024.
Foxtel declined to comment.
Nine is not the only free-to-air television broadcaster in Australia, but it is the NRL’s most likely suitor. It has held the rights for decades and its assets, including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, make it appealing for sports that want broad coverage. Lachlan Murdoch’s media business, News Corp, is no longer a shareholder in Foxtel.
An alternative is the Kerry Stokes-controlled Seven West Media, which announced a merger with radio company Southern Cross Media on Tuesday.
Advertisement
Some media figures believe this deal means an NRL bid is off the cards for Seven and will therefore reduce market tension. Others, such as Seven shareholder Matthew Booker, think it works in the company’s favour.
Peter V’landys said he wants to protect fans from paying large sums of money to watch NRL matches. Hamish Hastie
Few think the NRL would ever seriously do a deal with Paramount, the owner of Channel Ten. Channel Ten broadcasts Matildas and Socceroos matches and the local football competition, the A-League, but has struggled to compete against its major free-to-air rivals for content and technology.
V’landys said a deal with Ten would include a minimum standards requirement that would make sure it was up to scratch for fans.
“If I were CEO, I’d be throwing everything at the NRL. The NRL would fix its problem. You need a foundational powerhouse,” he said.
Australia’s three television networks may be interested, but they all face a similar challenge; managing costs at a time when the advertising market is challenged.
Advertisement
Two new teams
A proposed breakaway rugby union league, known as R360, is also threatening to take some of the NRL’s best players, including Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Ryan Papenhuyzen.
The competition, fronted by Mike Tindall, has already completed an initial funding round. The loss of high-profile players from the NRL would also affect the value of any deal.
“Anything that doesn’t have a business model or a backer, you can’t take seriously,” he said. “Who’s to say that [players] are not using this R360 as a stalking horse to get more money?”
Discussions about the next NRL deal, which will commence in 2028, are focused on two areas: how the rights will be split and how much they are worth. The former will most likely determine the latter, but both will also be determined by fixtures and any major changes to schedules, such as a move from a nighttime grand final to daytime.
The days and times that matches are played often change the rates advertisers are willing to pay. The NRL’s new deal will include two new teams, the Perth Bears and a Papua New Guinea side, both of which add new time zones to the mix and potential upside for advertisers.
Advertisement
‘Think of the fans’
Many major scheduling decisions are up in the air, but V’landys is clear on two: splitting State of Origin from the main NRL series is not a “preferred option”, and the NRL must be on the main television channel in every state, not a secondary channel, as happens to some AFL matches.
At a press conference on Tuesday, he also indicated he was open to more Sunday matches. He argues the time slot gives the sport “clear air” against codes such as the AFL and rugby union.
One of the other decisions will be how many games should go behind a paywall. Kayo Sports and Stan Sport are local subscription services, but international streaming giants such as Amazon Prime Video and ESPN+ have far deeper pockets to bid for rights if they choose to.
V’landys said whatever happened, he did not want his fans to have to pay more to watch games.
About 70 per cent of the AFL’s new deal comes from Foxtel. The new agreement commenced this year and coincided with $5 increase to Kayo Sports’ standard and premium packages (they now cost between $30 and $40 per month).
Advertisement
V’landys said he would find money in international markets rather than bumping up the cost to watch the NRL for Australian fans.
“NRL customers are already paying more for subscriptions as naturally Foxtel and Kayo have increased subscriptions due to the increase in payments to the AFL,” he said.
“Customers need to be able to afford the NRL. We are looking at making money from extra markets – New Zealand, England, the United States, and Papua New Guinea. We don’t want our fans in Australia paying more to watch rugby league.”
The last time Nine struck a deal with the NRL was in late 2021 after it had launched sports streaming service, Stan Sport. At the time, subscription broadcast rights were already tied up with Foxtel.
Nine and Foxtel have a long history of working together on broadcast deals across a range of sports, including cricket. Most recently, they put together a joint bid for the Rugby League World Cup, but the rights were reportedly handed to Seven West Media for about $12 million.
Foxtel was then owned by News Corp and Telstra, but this year it was acquired by Dazn, a Saudi-backed global streaming giant. People familiar with Foxtel’s thinking but not authorised to speak publicly say the NRL remains critical to the long-term future of the service in Australia.
Advertisement
Posturing is underway
But they argue there is also potential for Dazn to deploy a global strategy and help the NRL with its long-term ambitions.
Sources close to Nine, who similarly requested anonymity to speak freely about confidential discussions, said the media giant would consider an NRL offer that would include Stan Sport, but it just depends on price.
V’landys warned against the two companies working together.
Public posturing is typical of any broadcast negotiation, and the lead-up to the NRL talks has been no different. The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield wrote this week that V’landys had sent a letter to Nine complaining that it was covering too much AFL.
A week earlier, the Herald reported Seven had struck a deal for the Rugby League World Cup. Seven’s newspaper, The West Australia,n said last week the deal had not been signed by the board, but the very act of choosing an alternative broadcaster was seen by most as a way to put pressure on the incumbents.
