What's new
By:
Advanced search…
The Front Row Forums

Register a free account today to become a member of the world's largest Rugby League discussion forum! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Next TV deal discussion 2028 -

stratocaster

stratocaster

Juniors
Messages
172
i0Nic said:
There’s no doubt about it that the nrl will close the revenue gap with the afl and then start to build a lead - whether that happens in 2028 immediately with an 800m a year media deal or by 2032 with a 600m media deal.

But moreso rugby league and nrl is also more efficient in spending - less squad headcount and associated staffing, fewer overheads, no dead weights like GWS/Suns to prop up. This money can instead go to growth initiatives like buying and running super league or developing the international game.

What this means is that league will be in a position to really accelerate growth come the new media deal.
Click to expand...
Yeah seems to me that the NRL goes with a lower overheads and maximise returns mindset.

If the NRL hadn't been dominated by News Limited and the the commission had come in sooner, who knows, this revenue gap might already have been closed.
 
SirPies&Beers

SirPies&Beers

Bench
Messages
3,615
I reckon there’s a % of casual sports fans who are turning in to watch nrl games because of the lottery that is 6 agains, bunker, momentum swings and no side is every guaranteed victory unless they are up by 30 points…

this means for all the whining, all the whinging and frustration at the above, eyeballs are glued to the games because of how quickly a game can change and not knowing how a game is actually going to flow. Now that doesn’t means quality, but it does mean entertainment
 
W

Wb1234

Immortal
Messages
48,856
Depends who wrote it

most of the news Ltd journos talk it up since News Ltd no longer owns Fox so they don’t need to cheapen it

Maybe Andrew Webster he’s the only real tosser there and really a Union fan

it will get what it gets they can write all the negative articles they want

Pvl won’t stuff this deal up he knows what he’s got and how the networks played him last time
 
Johnny88

Johnny88

Juniors
Messages
1,713
For anyone interested here it is.

Inside the NRL’s high-stakes gamble for its next television rights deal​

Networks must decide whether they can afford the NRL’s ambitious multi-billion dollar broadcast rights demand or risk losing Australia’s top-rating sport entirely, writes ADAM PENGILLY.
Adam Pengilly

2 min read
April 18, 2026 - 7:00PM


NRL: The Fox League panel review a series of high tackle decisions from recent weeks and discuss whether there is consistency in how they are being ruled by the NRL.
This week, the NRL finally fired the starting gun for cash-challenged broadcasters to pass the tin around and lodge their best offer for what we’re told is the No.1 television sport in Australia right now.
It’s a formal invitation for the likes of Fox Sports, Nine, Seven, Ten, Amazon and more to tell the league what they’d be willing to pay for each timeslot of NRL from 2028. Be it Thursday night to Monday, it might be the most significant sign of a good old-fashioned rugby league carve up.
Not the carve up’s we’re seeing multiple times a week on the field right now, but a hint of how the NRL will maximise its most important cheque. That could mean following the lead of other global leagues, such as the NFL, and splitting its rights across three or more broadcasters.
Granted, the NRL has morphed into a commercial beast under the leadership of Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo.
The NRL might not have ever been in a healthier place to go to market, but there may have never been a worst time for the market, bleeding money due to soft advertising conditions and television executives fretting over Anthony Albanese’s imminent gambling promotion crackdown?
PVL and Abdo have the AFL’s TV deal in their sights. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

PVL and Abdo have the AFL’s TV deal in their sights. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images
Make no mistake, V’landys wants to usurp the AFL’s $4.5 billion, seven-year deal signed under former chief executive Gillon McLachlan.
A forecast of a $4 billion, five-year gamechanger is bold rhetoric, and V’landys has been privately counselled that type of money might simply not exist, and even a small uplift will be a great result. It’s unlikely to slow him down though.
Can the networks really afford to pay that? Or can the networks simply afford to not have the NRL?
That might sound like posturing from inside the corridors of the NRL, but it will be a key consideration for the DAZN-owned Fox, whose business plan has largely been built around having every match of every NRL round live, and Nine, who will be desperate to maintain a stranglehold on State of Origin and the grand final, and increase their footprint on the subscription service Stan.
Nine’s current outlay of $115 million per season barely washes its face.
The NRL’s one big bargaining chip might be the fact that most domestic sporting rights are locked away for years, making them hot property.

Is over refereeing hurting the NRL’s value? Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The AFL (2031), cricket (2031), tennis (2029) and the Olympic Games (2032) won’t be up for grabs any time soon, meaning the NRL is the last top tier sporting deal to be done for years.
More people are watching the game than ever before, but the six-again malarkey has taken it down a dangerously quick, and potentially unsustainable, path in the opening months of 2026.
No one wants the return of the wrestle, but did we want this?
The revolt of club bosses this week wanting urgent answers from head office speaks to much of the frustration with the current on-field product, over which referees have never had greater and more mysterious influence.
And we haven’t even got to the final rounds of the season when exhausted players and out-of-contention teams usually maximise blowouts?
Cowboys winger Braidon Burns being pinged for a brilliant one-on-one tackle on Tom Trbojevic early in the game on Thursday night was everything wrong with the interpretation as he tried to wriggle free from underneath the Manly No.1.
There’s still time to correct it. And it might just lead to the tin being full when passed around.


https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/s...ws-story/6577591d4c71ec2c685cc8a06a3c9d8b?amp
 
stratocaster

stratocaster

Juniors
Messages
172
The Daily Telegraph isn't journalism. It's a propaganda outlet for big business interests. And those big business interests don't want to pay more for the NRL.

It's using the same "sure, X is going great, but..." line it uses in lots of its hit pieces.
 
BuffaloRules

BuffaloRules

Coach
Messages
18,214
Wb1234 said:
“Nine’s current outlay of $115 million per season barely washes its face.”

lmao and that includes origin so nein are paying 65 million for the nrl comp
Click to expand...
Barely washes its face apparently means it struggles to make any money … what rubbish .. it’s the best sports broadcast deal going around and they have been the beneficiaries for 10 years

Compare to this - Nine pay $85m a year to show the Aust Open tennis which goes for two weeks and only rates really well when an Aussie makes a run once a decade ..even then it’s on during the non ratings period in January

they have paid $305 m to show the next 3 Summer and 2 Winter ( lol) Olympics - combined this is about 12 weeks of content .,

But the media analysts are worried ( lol) about Channel 9 being chained to an “albatross “ NRL deal ? 🤔 Proven quality content Feb through October every year and four of the top 5 rating programs ?

im confident the FTA ( including Origin) should double quite easily

will the Pay TV rights which are 70 percent of the total and I suspect not quite as undervalued now double as well - that’s the part that remains to be seen..

the gambling advertising thing is a little bit of a red herring … $30mil a year is the number here for the NRL broadcasters to suck up and I assume that branding and time will be replaced by something else if not quite as lucrative
 
Last edited:
Jetka100

Jetka100

Juniors
Messages
284
Nrl don’t want to run the risk of spreading the rights too much.

I think there just needs to be one pay tv/streamer provider.
Perhaps combine Monday night footy (if it is brought back) with State of Origin and international rep footy as seperate FTA right
Remaining FTA rights for 3 matches (Thu, Fri and Sun) and the final series.

nothing preventing Nine/Stan or Paramount/Ten paying for all 3 if they have deep pockets
 
Perth Red

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
75,590
colly said:
Well done putting that together
Click to expand...
Time differnce means that neither comp In The other hemisphere would get much live viewership. Be interesting to know how m ay people watch games on replay? Must admit I tend to watch 80% of games these days on catch up.

i also wonder if both sides of the world had more exposure to the others comps if fans would ‘adopt’ a club from the other competition to follow? Maybe club twinning would encourage that?
 
W

Wb1234

Immortal
Messages
48,856
Perth Red said:
Time differnce means that neither comp In The other hemisphere would get much live viewership. Be interesting to know how m ay people watch games on replay? Must admit I tend to watch 80% of games these days on catch up.

i also wonder if both sides of the world had more exposure to the others comps if fans would ‘adopt’ a club from the other competition to follow? Maybe club twinning would encourage that?
Click to expand...
You could have an early game on Saturday and Sunday night even if it’s 11 am Foxtel would pay good money for that and Aussies would watch in decent numbers giving the comp big exposure

nobody in Australia is going to stay up regularly between1 and 6 am to watch games regularly

there’s a huge tv market super league could be tapping
 
C

comeinpeace

Juniors
Messages
18
i0Nic said:
There’s no doubt about it that the nrl will close the revenue gap with the afl and then start to build a lead - whether that happens in 2028 immediately with an 800m a year media deal or by 2032 with a 600m media deal.

But moreso rugby league and nrl is also more efficient in spending - less squad headcount and associated staffing, fewer overheads, no dead weights like GWS/Suns to prop up. This money can instead go to growth initiatives like buying and running super league or developing the international game.

What this means is that league will be in a position to really accelerate growth come the new media deal.
Click to expand...
I don't disagree what you're trying to say but your interpretation is a bit weird.

If we're talking about about overheads (aka expenses), we have to consider all revenue in general, and consider that some revenue goes to a club directly, not via NRL/AFL head office revenue (for example, buying a beanie from the club website as part of overall merchandising revenue and expenses for both sports.

AFL makes far more revenue outside of its non-media rights package. More sponsorships, more memberships, more corporate, more ticketing, more merchandising for the clubs. Less fees from gambling, though, granted. That's outside media rights too.

The AFL doesn't just 'prop up' GWS/Suns via revenue raised in media rights. It does so from the overall package. AFL has been able to decrease their variable funding to the Brisbane Lions in recent years, as they have bigger attendances upon winning premierships. That's a bigger pool of money the AFL has to be able to prop up the deadweights of GWS/Suns.

And in any case, I don't see how you can interpret the NRL's decisions to spend on non-core spending outside of its competition - like super league and internationals - as "accelerating growth" - as being any different to the AFL's logic as to why it has a deadweight in GWS/Suns in the first place. To be clear, I'm not saying the these clubs are not deadweights, I agree with you on that. It's just that the same logic applies as to why the AFL brought them in - "accelerating growth, come new media deal more money". Those two teams lose money, but they brought indirect benefits to the AFL with a greater, consistent presence among all 5 major markets + Canberra via GWS to an extent (AFL was only playing 1 game a year in Canberra before GWS, not 3). Who knows how less money Toyota would pay for national sponsorships for example, now that the AFL can trick Toyota in telling them that their competition is "truly national", and their logo is plastered in every city every week? The NRL can't go to its national sponsors and claim that it's a "national brand" in the same sense that there are not games in Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth every week. It's stupid, I agree, but having worked in this industry before, the companies that might pay the millions of dollars for these types of sponsorships care about this BS stuff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Top