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Next TV deal discussion 2028 -

Matt_CBY

Juniors
Messages
1,625
Not the pre game which are where the ads are.

Depends how much they make from SOO, Good Friday and the other big games

I don't think across a year they are having huge losses but not every game makes money

More exclusive games on FTA changes that and makes that side of it more valuable
Exclusive FTA games is terrible for the viewing experience though.
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,337
Exclusive FTA games is terrible for the viewing experience though.

I wouldn't be a fan of it but that is US model that maximises revenue

FTA exclusive on Thursday and Sunday. Including NRLW games that are played Sunday mid day. Adds a fair slab to their rights

Where that leaves the rights for the other games for an increase is the question
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
69,634
I wouldn't be a fan of it but that is US model that maximises revenue

FTA exclusive on Thursday and Sunday. Including NRLW games that are played Sunday mid day. Adds a fair slab to their rights

Where that leaves the rights for the other games for an increase is the question
PTV would never allow it and fta would never pay enough to prise it away now.
 

Desert Qlder

First Grade
Messages
9,387

Anyone got the full article ?

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

Peter V’landys and his chief executive Andrew Abdo want a mammoth broadcast deal to shore up the code’s future. Will they bring an NFL-style model to Australia?

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 Telegraph frequently 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.


 
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Desert Qlder

First Grade
Messages
9,387

Anyone got the full article ?
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.

The NRL is in a strong financial position and audiences are up year-on-year. Getty Images
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.

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.

The biggest sports deals in the world are split between traditional media and streaming. AP
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.”
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,337
Good article and that is the reality with the market now. As I have been saying it isn't like anyone has a mountain of cash to spend
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
69,634
Disney+ could be a real option. they really dont have enough new content to justify a 12 month subscription and they have been putting their prices up quite considerably. Sport does provide the ultimate in new content on a weekly basis. Amazon Prime would be the other good option. Large subscription base and their streaming offerings are not great at moment.

I think we could well see a three way partnership for games this time if Foxtel refuse to dig deep. Nine (3 games) Fox (3fta+4 exclusive) streaming partner (3 exclusive).
 

Wb1234

Immortal
Messages
33,818
Yeh that’s the kind of article I expected those muppets at the afr to write

Channel nine own afr so getting their stool pigeons to get In early about why Nine can’t pay more

Even the rent a quote they got was pro fumbler lol

Anytime I read an article about the nrl tv by non league journos you get this creepy feeling like what are you gronks writing about this for

Thanks for the articles desert qlder
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,337
Yeh that’s the kind of article I expected those muppets at the afr to write

Channel nine own afr so getting their stool pigeons to get In early about why Nine can’t pay more

Even the rent a quote they got was pro fumbler lol

Anytime I read an article about the nrl tv by non league journos you get this creepy feeling like what are you gronks writing about this for

Thanks for the articles desert qlder

You do realise ch9 don't have a CEO at this point in time?

This comes after they lost their chairman in June?

The replacements are going to look to shake things up to change pretty much everything.

They are as up in the air atm as ch10 is.
 

Wb1234

Immortal
Messages
33,818
You do realise ch9 don't have a CEO at this point in time?

This comes after they lost their chairman in June?

The replacements are going to look to shake things up to change pretty much everything.

They are as up in the air atm as ch10 is.
They pay 60 to 80 million pa for the nrl on its own whilst afl get 140 million

They can ead
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,337
They pay 60 to 80 million pa for the nrl on its own whilst afl get 140 million

They can ead

Different circumstances.

The same people who wrote the article above also said ch7 can't afford the next AFL rights.

That is FTA atm. All the networks are broke
 

Wb1234

Immortal
Messages
33,818
Different circumstances.

The same people who wrote the article above also said ch7 can't afford the next AFL rights.

That is FTA atm. All the networks are broke
Nrl gives nine four of the most watched programs every year

Afl gives seven one such event

Anytime there’s an nrl deal being done the media always talk down it’s prospects but when it’s afl they talk about how it’s a big national comp
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,337
Nrl gives nine four of the most watched programs every year

Afl gives seven one such event

Anytime there’s an nrl deal being done the media always talk down it’s prospects but when it’s afl they talk about how it’s a big national comp

Again as mentioned before. Ch7 got things like an Adelaide team playing into Adelaide. Giving them sometimes 60% FTA market share.

So who can pay if Ch9 can't next deal?
 

Wb1234

Immortal
Messages
33,818
Again as mentioned before. Ch7 got things like an Adelaide team playing into Adelaide. Giving them sometimes 60% FTA market share.

So who can pay if Ch9 can't next deal?
They will simulcast origin with Fox and get more money by doing it

And seven might want origin on its own

Nrl has loads of options to avoid a crap tv deal
 

Iamback

Referee
Messages
20,337
They will simulcast origin with Fox and get more money by doing it

And seven might want origin on its own

Nrl has loads of options to avoid a crap tv deal

Then FTA pays less because it won't get the same viewers

Ch7 lost 69% of their revenue too.

No one is going that well here
 

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