Seven in a jam as NRL, AFL TV rights deals loom
The Australian
May 18, 2015 12:00AM
The National Rugby League is inclined to move at least one game from Fox Sports to be broadcast live on free-to-air television.
While maintaining it has a blank-sheet approach, the NRL has identified some clear objectives ahead of its meetings with broadcasters over the coming weeks: it wants more live games and better free-to-air coverage.
This could work nicely for Nine, which is trying to take an NRL game from Fox for Saturday nights, because it currently doesn’t have any free-to-air games on Saturdays.
Given the NRL wants more live games, it’s also possible that one of the two Friday night games could move to Thursday.
With the first round of briefings with broadcasters starting this week, the NRL last Tuesday announced a formal adviser to handle its rights process, Credit Suisse chief executive John Knox, who was also adviser to Cricket Australia in its rights bid. Knox has previously worked with veteran Graeme Samuel, who ran the process for the NRL as an independent adviser.
But Credit Suisse has recently lost managing director Emma Jane Newton, who was appointed head of corporate development at Telstra in July. “EJ”, as she’s known in the industry, was heavily involved in Nine’s refinancing. Interestingly, she is the daughter of The Australian’s founding editor Max Newton.
Seven’s longstanding lawyers Clayton Utz have accepted the brief from the NRL to act in its forthcoming rights tender — and this has caused some disquiet at Pyrmont. It means that Seven’s sports legal work will come up for tender. It’ll be a lucrative contract, keenly sought-after among law firms.
As a long line of execs from Seven, Nine, Ten and Foxtel traipse through NRL headquarters over coming weeks, one who will have a long commute is Jeffrey Browne, who Diary revealed last week is running Nine’s negotiations. He’s basing himself in the south of France for Australia’s winter. Only Browne could run a rights negotiation while sunbaking and sipping malbec in Aix-en-Provence.
If the NRL signs a five-year deal, it will mean the rights are locked in for 7½ years from now. If it’s a seven-year deal, it will take the rights out of action for a decade.
Meanwhile, the fact the NRL opened their bidding process 2½ years early caught the AFL napping. The NRL seems to be determined to no longer play a poor cousin to the AFL.
By jumping ahead of the AFL, all FTA broadcasters are serious bidders on the NRL for the first time, including Seven. How could the network be prepared not to bid when it doesn’t have a guarantee on retaining the AFL rights?
The AFL now will have to decide whether it waits or runs its bidding process simultaneously.
But networks are already planning their AFL strategy. Diary understands Foxtel is keen to take a game off FTA. Ben Buckley is running its bid. If it goes ahead, the collective rights, including digital, could *potentially see valuations of $4.5 billion of deals done in the next few months.
