beIN Sports eye NRL pay TV rights
Qatar-based sports broadcasting giant beIN Sports may bid for the pay-television rights to screen National Rugby League matches from 2018, creating a well-funded potential competitor to Fox Sports.
The NRL would benefit from other bidders to compete with Fox Sports and Foxtel, whose half-owner News Corp is on a campaign to unseat NRL chief executive Dave Smith after he snubbed the pay-TV giant by striking an exclusive $925 million five-year free-to-air deal with Nine Entertainment Co two weeks ago.
beIN Sports, which did not respond to requests for comment, is interested in bidding for the rights and has said as much to the NRL, sources said.
Owned by the Al Jazeera network, beIN Sports started operating in Australia last year when it took over the Setanta Sports Network. The Setanta channel, which is carried through Foxtel, Fetch TV and digitally over the internet was rebranded beIN Sport.
The network has been aggressively buying up soccer rights, including taking the bulk of the European Champions League this year, and Italian, Spanish and German rights, and shows the Six Nations rugby union.
Other mooted potential contenders for NRL rights include the ESPN Network, while the NRL has held discussions with the likes of Google and Netflix – though it is unclear if they would pay big money for the rights.
Despite News's campaign against rugby league's chiefs, NRL remains an important sport for Foxtel and for Fox Sports in Sydney and Brisbane, where many fans subscribe to cable or satellite to watch its coverage.
Broadcast rights deal
Last week, after rival code the Australian Football League signed the largest broadcast rights deal in Australian sport history with News Corp, Seven West Media and Telstra, News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said: "I guess we will engage with the NRL in time." The three companies will pay $2.508 billion over six years.
Foxtel chief executive Richard Freudenstein has since stressed that the "NRL are very good partners" and said "we obviously want to keep working with them". Foxtel provides some of the funding for Fox Sports' current $110 million-a-year NRL contract.
Fox Sports had been keen to show all eight weekly NRL matches live, against the five it now has rights for, but may baulk at paying the NRL a large increase after Nine cut into its live rights with its Saturday match.
Nine will telecast live four matches a round, up from the two live and one on replay it shows. It will also gain digital streaming rights for the four games, which will be played on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon.
The additional fourth match was a blow for Fox Sports, which has exclusive rights to Saturday matches – a key pillar of its pitch to subscribers.
Nine has also held on to the final series, the high-rating State of Origin series and any other special rugby league matches. One of the three annual State of Origin matches, which are usually among the highest-rating television programs of the year, will move to Sunday evening.
Nine will have exclusivity over the Origin matches and the Grand Final, with the NRL to attempt to broker a deal with Fox Sports that could include other finals series matches.
