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Next TV deal discussion 2028 -

Messages
604
From the Sydney Morning Herald today:

"The sale process comes at a crucial time for Foxtel with the looming exit of HBO content on Binge. Negotiations for the next NRL rights deal are also due to formally kick off soon, and are no certainty, with co-broadcaster Nine, owner of this masthead, keen to replicate its cross-platform Olympics coverage with rugby league."

Competition.
 

Chief_Chujo

First Grade
Messages
8,123
From the Sydney Morning Herald today:

"The sale process comes at a crucial time for Foxtel with the looming exit of HBO content on Binge. Negotiations for the next NRL rights deal are also due to formally kick off soon, and are no certainty, with co-broadcaster Nine, owner of this masthead, keen to replicate its cross-platform Olympics coverage with rugby league."

Competition.
Well there it is straight from their mouthpiece. Nine want it all.
 
Messages
604
Great read, thank you very much.
Loved this closing paragraph:

“They will need to take a risk and I think that risk is similarly fragmenting the rights to the NFL and NBA,” Sports and media lawyer Lachlan Gepp says. “That said, Peter and Andrew are proven trailblazers. I’m expecting to see a bigger number than the AFL.”
 

nko11

Juniors
Messages
706

Anybody able to access this?

The media storm behind the NRL’s next billion-dollar play​


Once the dust settles on this weekend’s grand final, rugby league bosses Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo will hit fast-forward on plans to secure a multibillion-dollar broadcast deal.

There are more than two years left on the NRL’s existing agreement with Foxtel and Nine Entertainment – but the pair do not want to waste time.

The NRL’s audiences are bigger than ever and the addition of two new clubs into the competition by the end of the decade has put them in a strong position. Or at least that’s the hope.

People familiar with the matter but not authorised to speak publicly said negotiations could start within weeks, as soon as the NRL’s expansion plans are locked in. V’landys, who is the Australian Rugby League Commission chairman, is a deal maker and there is every chance a record agreement can be achieved. But this next round of negotiations will not be easy.

Traditional media has never been in a tougher position. Australia’s advertising market is weak and companies including Nine and Foxtel are trying to balance this with fast-growing costs – this was the key reason for the departure of Nine chief executive Mike Sneesby last month.

The Albanese government is also considering a gambling advertising ban during major sporting events, which would cost sports and media partners millions of dollars. To make matters more complicated, Foxtel – the owner of Fox Sports and Kayo Sports – is up for sale, and Nine doesn’t have a permanent chief executive (Matt Stanton is the interim CEO).

The AFL made history in 2022 when it signed a $4.5 billion media rights deal with Seven West Media and Foxtel over seven years. This was a 36 per cent increase on the adjusted broadcast agreement made during the pandemic.

With more matches to sell when the new clubs start, as well as new timeslots and new markets, the NRL will want a record windfall. Media rights are critical to sports administrators – about 70 per cent of the NRL’s revenue comes from this deal.

For all of V’landys’ NRL achievements – steering the sport through the pandemic and launching the season in the United States – he will be judged on the size of the next agreement. To achieve a substantial increase in the current climate, V’landys and Abdo will have to think differently.

“Naturally, we would expect any future NRL media rights deal would reflect the strong growth the code has experienced in recent seasons and the passionate following fans have for the game,” Abdo says. “The [ARLC] is focused on securing the best possible broadcast deal for the game’s stakeholders and that will involve a detailed analysis on what we take to the market.”

The NRL’s 17 clubs – which believe they were undercut last negotiations – want the final sign-off on any deal as a condition of continuing to compete for the premiership. No matter what way you cut it, it will be complicated.


“The next NRL broadcast deal is the trickiest sports rights deal in Australia in living memory,” says sports and media lawyer Lachlan Gepp, who previously worked for the NRL and Sportsbet.

“The ARL Commission will be laser-focused on surpassing the value of the AFL deal, but I can’t see that happening under a traditional broadcast model. The money just isn’t there.”

The last time V’landys was forced to the negotiating table, NRL players weren’t even on the field. It was early 2020 and the number of people infected with COVID-19 was increasing by the day. It was a terrible situation. The absence of competition was going to send the NRL broke and put its media partners Nine and Foxtel into a bad financial state.

But in the hours before the start of the season, V’landys – who had recently sacked chief executive Todd Greenberg – struck what many thought was gold: an extended deal with Foxtel until 2027 (the terms were not disclosed).

Nine, the owner of The Australian Financial Review, negotiated a discount for the remaining part of its contract before signing a deal worth $650 million in 2021 and Foxtel ended up injecting more cash into the game when the Dolphins joined the competition in 2023.

Media and rugby league sources claim the total agreement, which expires in 2027, is worth a little over $1.7 billion when including rights in New Zealand.

But by the time 2022 came around, it was clear that the NRL may not have got what it thought it deserved. A $4.5 billion deal struck by the AFL with Foxtel and Seven West Media raised eyebrows – it left many NRL clubs and media executives believing Foxtel got itself the better deal back in 2020.

Former Nine chief executive Hugh Marks was probably thinking that, too. By the time Nine was ready to negotiate an extension in late 2021, the company had launched its own paywalled sports service, Stan Sport.

People with direct knowledge of the discussions, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said Marks told V’landys doing an early deal with Foxtel was a mistake – Nine could have bid for the entire product and used it across all of its services.

V’landys would later say the AFL deal wasn’t a concern and that he needed to do the deal to stop Foxtel from going broke. “If Foxtel coughs, all the codes catch a cold,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2022.

Some media executives didn’t agree, suggested the comments proved he was too close to News Corp. “He did the wrong deal,” said one on condition of anonymity over concerns of retribution. “Hindsight is a brilliant thing.”

V’landys and News Corp executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch know each other well. Fox Corp, which is run by Murdoch, was a significant promoter of the push into Las Vegas early this year and News Corp is the majority owner of the ASX-listed Brisbane Broncos. News Corp tabloid The Daily Telegraphfrequently places V’landys among its most powerful people in the country (the Financial Review also placed V’landys on a power list last month). V’landys argues the relationship comes with benefits for the NRL.


The NRL has more than two years until its existing broadcast deals expire, which begs the question of why now.

The most obvious answer is the NRL is in a strong position. In 2023, the NRL reported revenue of $701 million, an increase of 18 per cent and an operating surplus of $58.2 million, up 7 per cent.

Viewership has increased too, which makes it more appealing to advertisers and broadcasters. The NRL says that free-to-air television viewers climbed 3.7 per cent in the regular season and subscription TV audiences, including those on Kayo Sports, climbed 8.1 per cent. Flagship season events like the State of Origin and Magic Round were also up year-on-year.

“Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo have the game humming,” says former Nine chief executive David Gyngell. “They need to get paid for it.”

There are signs traditional media partners will be played against the new in this negotiation – V’landys said in an interview last month he wanted a meeting with billionaire David Ellison, the new owner of Paramount.

But what competitive tension looks like in reality is unclear.

Nine’s investors made it clear that they don’t want the company to spend lots of money after striking historic deals with Tennis Australia and the International Olympic Committee for five summer and winter games.

Seven and Ten aren’t flowing with cash either and all three television networks are still waiting on the outcome of a federal government inquiry into reducing online gambling harm.

There is a possibility that gambling ads will be banned during live sport, inside stadiums, and on jerseys. If that goes ahead, it would have an impact on the economics of a new deal and how much a potential party could offer.

Some bookmakers are already introducing changes to how much they spend on advertisements and programs around sports. The NRL’s wagering partner, Sportsbet, has cut the numbers of ads before and after live sport and will have no one promoting odds around the grand final over the weekend (it did the same thing in the AFL). Sportsbet declined to comment.

“The AFL has almost always perfectly timed their deal,” Hunter Fujak, lecturer in sports management at Deakin University, says. “The AFL signed a deal in a world before Seven would have been thinking about gambling ad bans. They would have got absolute top dollar.

“NRL is now going to go to market in a world where free-to-air companies can’t have anywhere near as many gambling ads. Structurally, I don’t think it’s going to be able to be in the same ballpark.”

If Nine does want to engage in a new deal, it will need to convince its board and shareholders the numbers stack up. That includes billionaire Bruce Gordon, who happens to own the St George Illawarra Dragons.


Part 1/2
 

nko11

Juniors
Messages
706
To do this, Nine, which has the free-to-air rights, will almost certainly want exclusivity for a couple of matches per week. Locking in some sort of arrangement for Stan is probably desirable, but it’s unlikely the NRL would want to let go of any sort of partnership with Foxtel.

The media giant is also in an exclusive negotiating period with Rugby Australia for its Wallabies and Wallaroos matches and the Super Rugby competition. This deal, which expires at the end of 2025, has underpinned the growth strategy for Nine’s streaming service, Stan. If it does not do this deal or one with the NRL, there is every chance its strategy unravels.


Foxtel, which is the subscription provider of the NRL, will also want exclusivity and more matches behind a paywall if it is going to pay more money. But it has its challenges too – it will also be affected by a gambling crackdown and has a $1.7 billion debt load.

Some people still pay for Foxtel’s set-top boxes, but the average revenue per user is significantly smaller on its streaming platform Kayo Sports. This makes it difficult to offset broadcast rights as well as the cost of production.

The only way to justify a substantial increase would be to offset it with more customers or more advertising.

There’s an elephant in the room, too: Foxtel, which is majority-owned by News Corp, confirmed in August it was up for sale following third-party interest.

Some media and sports executives are sceptical of whether a deal will be done. But if there are genuine intentions for a sale or a debt refinancing, having an NRL locked in until the new decade could be considered appealing (sources close to Foxtel say the deal will have little to no impact on any potential sale).

“The NRL should expect a substantial uplift based on how well participation, viewership and management are performing,” Gyngell says.

“For 20 years I’ve been hearing sports rights are going to go backwards. It just is not true. While traditional media is a nightmare for investors, a true horror show is losing great sports rights.”

Australian sports deals have historically been split between a free-to-air television network and Foxtel, which was until recently the monopoly subscription provider. This is because of a longstanding federal government law that requires major sports and cultural events to be offered up to a free broadcaster before a paid service.

Changes to these laws earlier this year created a loophole for the NRL – it has no obligation to put streaming rights on platforms like 9Now or 7Plus. It means free-to-air networks that want digital rights may find themselves competing alongside tech giants such as Amazon.

It’s a nightmare for Nine, but an opportunity for a sport like the NRL if it wants to maximise revenue.

The NRL is in the process of deciding which clubs will join the competition under the next deal, but the most likely scenario is a Perth-based team and another based in Papua New Guinea as part of a soft diplomacy arrangement with the federal government.

Clubs aren’t sure whether a PNG club would add any commercial value, but there are signs the economics stack up if a team in Perth goes ahead.


The potential introduction of new clubs in the competition would give the sports body more fixtures and an opportunity to provide a broadcaster with exclusivity based on a day or location.

The NRL has also floated the introduction of a conference system and a draft. It also has ambitions to expand the NRLW competition and boost the profile of the Pacific Championships. There’s also the Las Vegas play – a move designed to create more value for an international streaming service.

“The reason we are thinking about growth is to maximise outcomes for members and stakeholders,” Abdo told Nine’s rugby league show 100% Footy in September. “All these major events go into the mix.”

In the US and the United Kingdom, the big sports are finding new ways to make money. Streaming giant Netflix, which once said it would never broadcast live sport, is the home of two Christmas Day NFL games under an agreement with CBS Sports. The most recent NFL deal also includes matches on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, ESPN+ and NFL+.

In July, the NBA signed a US$76 billion contract with Disney (for ABC and ESPN), Comcast (NBA and Peacock) and Amazon to broadcast matches until 2036. Over in the UK, the English Premier League has local agreements split between Sky Sports, BT Sport, and Amazon Prime.

V’landys and Abdo might consider carving up the rights in the same way.


There are plenty of potential partners – Amazon Prime Video is an obvious one, as is Paramount (provided it has no plans to divest its Australian television network). A left-field contender could be Disney – it is in the middle of rolling out a dedicated tile on its streaming service Disney Plus that will eventually provide ESPN content to users for a fee.

By 2028, it may want to look at an exclusive match per week if it believes it would increase its share of the Australian market.

The NRL could also go directly to consumers – it’s more difficult, but not impossible. The NRL has a service offshore, Watch NRL, and depending on how much it charges, it could make millions via subscribers and advertisers.

If a gambling crackdown proceeds, the NRL will need to rethink its relationship with bookmakers, too. The code’s current wagering partner is Sportsbet and the deal expires in 2025.

An alternative to sponsorship could be a non-exclusive content agreement – giving a bookmaker access to matches in exchange for money (the NBA has deals with Tabcorp and Sportsbet).

“They will need to take a risk and I think that risk is similarly fragmenting the rights to the NFL and NBA,” Gepp says. “That said, Peter and Andrew are proven trailblazers. I’m expecting to see a bigger number than the AFL.”

Part 2/2
 

Vlad59

Bench
Messages
4,048
To do this, Nine, which has the free-to-air rights, will almost certainly want exclusivity for a couple of matches per week. Locking in some sort of arrangement for Stan is probably desirable, but it’s unlikely the NRL would want to let go of any sort of partnership with Foxtel.

The media giant is also in an exclusive negotiating period with Rugby Australia for its Wallabies and Wallaroos matches and the Super Rugby competition. This deal, which expires at the end of 2025, has underpinned the growth strategy for Nine’s streaming service, Stan. If it does not do this deal or one with the NRL, there is every chance its strategy unravels.


Foxtel, which is the subscription provider of the NRL, will also want exclusivity and more matches behind a paywall if it is going to pay more money. But it has its challenges too – it will also be affected by a gambling crackdown and has a $1.7 billion debt load.

Some people still pay for Foxtel’s set-top boxes, but the average revenue per user is significantly smaller on its streaming platform Kayo Sports. This makes it difficult to offset broadcast rights as well as the cost of production.

The only way to justify a substantial increase would be to offset it with more customers or more advertising.

There’s an elephant in the room, too: Foxtel, which is majority-owned by News Corp, confirmed in August it was up for sale following third-party interest.

Some media and sports executives are sceptical of whether a deal will be done. But if there are genuine intentions for a sale or a debt refinancing, having an NRL locked in until the new decade could be considered appealing (sources close to Foxtel say the deal will have little to no impact on any potential sale).

“The NRL should expect a substantial uplift based on how well participation, viewership and management are performing,” Gyngell says.

“For 20 years I’ve been hearing sports rights are going to go backwards. It just is not true. While traditional media is a nightmare for investors, a true horror show is losing great sports rights.”

Australian sports deals have historically been split between a free-to-air television network and Foxtel, which was until recently the monopoly subscription provider. This is because of a longstanding federal government law that requires major sports and cultural events to be offered up to a free broadcaster before a paid service.

Changes to these laws earlier this year created a loophole for the NRL – it has no obligation to put streaming rights on platforms like 9Now or 7Plus. It means free-to-air networks that want digital rights may find themselves competing alongside tech giants such as Amazon.

It’s a nightmare for Nine, but an opportunity for a sport like the NRL if it wants to maximise revenue.

The NRL is in the process of deciding which clubs will join the competition under the next deal, but the most likely scenario is a Perth-based team and another based in Papua New Guinea as part of a soft diplomacy arrangement with the federal government.

Clubs aren’t sure whether a PNG club would add any commercial value, but there are signs the economics stack up if a team in Perth goes ahead.


The potential introduction of new clubs in the competition would give the sports body more fixtures and an opportunity to provide a broadcaster with exclusivity based on a day or location.

The NRL has also floated the introduction of a conference system and a draft. It also has ambitions to expand the NRLW competition and boost the profile of the Pacific Championships. There’s also the Las Vegas play – a move designed to create more value for an international streaming service.

“The reason we are thinking about growth is to maximise outcomes for members and stakeholders,” Abdo told Nine’s rugby league show 100% Footy in September. “All these major events go into the mix.”

In the US and the United Kingdom, the big sports are finding new ways to make money. Streaming giant Netflix, which once said it would never broadcast live sport, is the home of two Christmas Day NFL games under an agreement with CBS Sports. The most recent NFL deal also includes matches on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, ESPN+ and NFL+.

In July, the NBA signed a US$76 billion contract with Disney (for ABC and ESPN), Comcast (NBA and Peacock) and Amazon to broadcast matches until 2036. Over in the UK, the English Premier League has local agreements split between Sky Sports, BT Sport, and Amazon Prime.

V’landys and Abdo might consider carving up the rights in the same way.


There are plenty of potential partners – Amazon Prime Video is an obvious one, as is Paramount (provided it has no plans to divest its Australian television network). A left-field contender could be Disney – it is in the middle of rolling out a dedicated tile on its streaming service Disney Plus that will eventually provide ESPN content to users for a fee.

By 2028, it may want to look at an exclusive match per week if it believes it would increase its share of the Australian market.

The NRL could also go directly to consumers – it’s more difficult, but not impossible. The NRL has a service offshore, Watch NRL, and depending on how much it charges, it could make millions via subscribers and advertisers.

If a gambling crackdown proceeds, the NRL will need to rethink its relationship with bookmakers, too. The code’s current wagering partner is Sportsbet and the deal expires in 2025.

An alternative to sponsorship could be a non-exclusive content agreement – giving a bookmaker access to matches in exchange for money (the NBA has deals with Tabcorp and Sportsbet).

“They will need to take a risk and I think that risk is similarly fragmenting the rights to the NFL and NBA,” Gepp says. “That said, Peter and Andrew are proven trailblazers. I’m expecting to see a bigger number than the AFL.”

Part 2/2
Thanks mate
 

BuffaloRules

Coach
Messages
15,371
Great read, thank you very much.
Loved this closing paragraph:

“They will need to take a risk and I think that risk is similarly fragmenting the rights to the NFL and NBA,” Sports and media lawyer Lachlan Gepp says. “That said, Peter and Andrew are proven trailblazers. I’m expecting to see a bigger number than the AFL.”

Yes … this will involve multiple providers with exclusive content though, so unfortunately the flip side will be that this fragmented approach is likely to cost us the consumers, more money then a simple Kayo subscription ..
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,192
Great read, thank you very much.
Loved this closing paragraph:

“They will need to take a risk and I think that risk is similarly fragmenting the rights to the NFL and NBA,” Sports and media lawyer Lachlan Gepp says. “That said, Peter and Andrew are proven trailblazers. I’m expecting to see a bigger number than the AFL.”

Easy to break up rights when you have 330m people.

NFL is on 5 different networks, we don't even have 5 options here.
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,192
Yes … this will involve multiple providers with exclusive content though, so unfortunately the flip side will be that this fragmented approach is likely to cost us the consumers, more money then a simple Kayo subscription ..

That is the elephant in the room, want to maximise the $ but don't want to go backwards as far as people watching goes
 

BuffaloRules

Coach
Messages
15,371
That is the elephant in the room, want to maximise the $ but don't want to go backwards as far as people watching goes

If they are chasing the most money … will PVL and the clubs care ?

Providing they are still keep a similar FTA presence as they do now they should be right
 

Wb1234

Immortal
Messages
33,023
Jeeze that article sucks up to the afl in a big way

The reason the nrl is booming and worth so much to tv is purely because of pvl and abdo

Marks got sacked because his dealing with the nrl was so acrimonious

The afl deal is padded with 100 million pa full of contra like stadium improvements to docklands stadium by Telstra

On a cash basis the afl is around 520 million pa and the nrl should be getting more than that easily

If they want to pad on a hundred million of contra on top it won’t change the cash figure

Foxtel sale will be contingent upon retaining the nrl rights

Nrl has them over a barrell especially if stan bid good numbers
 

nko11

Juniors
Messages
706
That is the elephant in the room, want to maximise the $ but don't want to go backwards as far as people watching goes
Depends what level they go to with it. Saw a suggestion on Reddit of:

  • E.g Thursday Night - Amazon Prime Exclusive
  • Friday 6pm, Super Saturday x 3, Sunday 2pm - Fox/Kayo Exclusives
  • Friday 8pm - CH Nine Exclusive
  • Monday Night - Stan Sport Exclusive
  • Sunday 4pm - Paramount+ Exclusive

This would be major overkill and would do more harm than good and you'd fall down the ARU paywall trap. If they were to do something like this for 20 teams:

Thursday 7pm - C9
Friday 6pm - Stan
Friday 8pm - C9
Saturday 3pm - Stan
Saturday 5pm - Stan
Saturday 7pm -C9
Sunday 2pm - Stan
Sunday 4pm - Stan
Sunday 7pm (WA/PNG games) - C9
Monday 7pm- Amazon

4x FTA Primetime + 5xStan + 1x Amazon

With Monday Night Football being an add on for all the fans who don't want the footy to end for the week. Whichever provider gets this will all of a sudden be the favourite of a lot of households that are looking to only get one extra subscription service.

Which would only cost at current prices - $27 (Stan) + $10 (Amazon) per month. The MNF may only get 100-200k switching over, but because of vertical integration, they'd be getting 100k-200k more customers for Amazon Marketplace. Which is worth a lot more than what a regular tv setup would pay for it. If they start shopping at Amazon instead of big box retailers, etc. All of a sudden each extra subscriber is worth monumentally more.

Especially if Amazon goes hard into the Grocery industry:
1728031251835.png

Say they paid $80 Mill for MNF per year and they got 200k people signed up to Amazon to watch. They would need to make $400 on average from everyone that signed up to make it P/L neutral. $120 gets covered from Subscription fees. Average Grocery bill is $560/person/month in Aus. Low margins (2.6% on average), but still. Add on top that the high margin products people would buy:
1728032018223.png
Would pay for itself pretty handily.
 
Last edited:

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,192
If they are chasing the most money … will PVL and the clubs care ?

Providing they are still keep a similar FTA presence as they do now they should be right

This current TV deal. While I don't think it was a bad one, Could of been higher but the aim was to expand.

So it depends what the next goal is, Say the offer they get is for a 30% raise now but the deal following that is only 20% more.

I am not sure they accept it.

I do think at some stage, Fox will run for example NRL on Sat, AFL on the Sunday. With Stan or someone the opposite.

Not sure that will bring in much more money but will be what they can afford
 

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