Decent argument to a degree, however two things:
1. It is not the responsibility of the leader of the game to be more concerned about the financial position of the broadcaster, particularly one backed by a global company like News Limited then your own. It makes no sense. Firstly, from a logical point of view, in a negotiation you advocate your own position not advocate the position of whom you are negotiating with. Secondly the idea that the Murdochs are going to become insolvent and by extension Foxtel is not likely.
2. No network actually makes money out of sports broadcasting, at least not directly. They overspend relatively for cross promotions and advertising. It’s to the point now, at least for FTA that if you don’t get a high profile sport then nobody will watch your channel (other than occasional reality trash). Essentially the sport should hold the whip hand, not the other way around, because demand significantly outweighs supply.
1. Lets say in that example that Paramount losses $200m a season from that $500m plus investment.
Are they going to bid lower next time? Ch7 and cricket are going through this right now.
A League was on overs the next deal was way less. You run the risk of the rights deal going back wards in the next deal if you push the evelope too far.
Unless you want it like NFL where you are always stopping for ads which damages the product more then possibly taking $50m more would.
It is a fine balance and eventually we can do a proper comparison.
2. In that same scenario ch10 especially on weekends would get a huge lift but the spend is 60/40 pay TV in most deals.
You want subscriptions to the streaming side and not just to 'share' passwords etc and stay.
There lies where I think the hesitation is due to the number of streamers, You need to get enough people who don't like cricket, F1, US sports etc to cancel Kayo or to think NRL with their other programming makes it a better option then Disney Plus or whatever they have.
Again Rugby and A League had modest following on Fox, Fox/Kayo have grown while they get horrible ratings on the new streamers.
So that limits what they will pay, I do think the game gets an increase of $50m-$75m though just not anything crazy. although like with the extra AFL round a 9th game will be added