Next TV rights deal

[Last Week]

People act like it's something new, it's already happened, the first 4 rounds of 2013 were 5 nights, thurs-mon, as was round 1 last year and this year, I don't think ratings would suffer from any overexposure, particularly if there are less rounds, crowds would suffer on thursday's & sunday nights, but it's not like they get that many on friday night or sunday arvo in Sydney anyway.

Because crowds are so ordinary they aren't giving the NRL much of a hard decision, hundreds of millions more or crowd averages down a couple thousand off an already low base?

Apathetic fans are just as much to blame as the NRL for allowing TV to control the draw, they have had plenty opportunities to show they value daylight games and haven't.

Personally, I hate the Monday night game, it is devoid of excitement and atmosphere and has essentially become a choir. Thursday's I actually like, it's that early taste before a weekend of footy. Sunday nights are awful, no one wants to be at the footy or watching footy the night before the beginning of the work week.

I would like to see thurs FTA, fri FTA, sat arvo, sat 5:30, 7:30 FTA, Sun 2pm x 2, and sun 4pm FTA

Well why not just go for it and put a game on every night and have an extra game on Sunday's.

At what point do we stop being TV show and start being a sport?

 

[insert.pause]

Well why not just go for it and put a game on every night and have an extra game on Sunday's.

At what point do we stop being TV show and start being a sport?

Probably at the same time we start talking more about the on field game than the off field soap opera the games become?

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

People act like it's something new, it's already happened, the first 4 rounds of 2013 were 5 nights, thurs-mon, as was round 1 last year and this year, I don't think ratings would suffer from any overexposure, particularly if there are less rounds, crowds would suffer on thursday's & sunday nights, but it's not like they get that many on friday night or sunday arvo in Sydney anyway.

Because crowds are so ordinary they aren't giving the NRL much of a hard decision, hundreds of millions more or crowd averages down a couple thousand off an already low base?

Apathetic fans are just as much to blame as the NRL for allowing TV to control the draw, they have had plenty opportunities to show they value daylight games and haven't.

Personally, I hate the Monday night game, it is devoid of excitement and atmosphere and has essentially become a choir. Thursday's I actually like, it's that early taste before a weekend of footy. Sunday nights are awful, no one wants to be at the footy or watching footy the night before the beginning of the work week.

I would like to see thurs FTA, fri FTA, sat arvo, sat 5:30, 7:30 FTA, Sun 2pm x 2, and sun 4pm FTA

I may be over estimating people here, but to me this is just a longer term investment...

Sure, people dont go to these games in the friendlier time slots, but these are so few and far between that it is difficult to blame them for not forming a habit.

Its one of the reasons u support centralised stadiums over the current model; allowing people to form habits by selling the games at the same time and in the same place every week (as opposed to the current "some time between friday and monday, in a stadium youve probably never been to") would boost the attendence of avid fans that currently go to the pub or stay at home instead...

 

[Cumberland Throw]

The problem is with saturday FTA, is all the decision makers, the media, the players, the hard core fans have Fox...

We need to think about the other 67% of the population who dont have it...

A kid living in a non fox house, will not grow up falling in love with RL like most of us did,

AFL on the other hand has what 5 FTA games a week beamed into every house in AUS..

Have a think about how you discovered and grew up with RL, it probably wasnt at the ground

 

[CC_Roosters]

Seriously cannot stand the idea of football 5 nights a week. I agree, it's too much. It's either Thursday OR Monday night. If they're insistent on another prime time match not on a Saturday, 6:30pm on Sunday nights is it.

Yep my thoughts as well

 

[Lockyer4President!]

The problem is with saturday FTA, is all the decision makers, the media, the players, the hard core fans have Fox...

We need to think about the other 67% of the population who dont have it...

A kid living in a non fox house, will not grow up falling in love with RL like most of us did,

AFL on the other hand has what 5 FTA games a week beamed into every house in AUS..

Have a think about how you discovered and grew up with RL, it probably wasnt at the ground

This is why I'm not too worried about over-saturation.

We need more games on FTA and we need to make sure those FTA games are shown nationwide.
Five days a week is a lot but if we have two or even three FTA channels covering games and competing with each other for their coverage it will only be good for the game.

 

[Perth Red]

I can see fox pushing hard for live simu cast every game this time. With all the talk of extra fta games it is the only way they are going to keep RL subscribers.

Thur-mon is massive overkill and the last thing the game needs is another week night game. I guess one of the down sides of having money men runong the game is it becomes all about the $'s and little about the sport.

 

[El Diablo]

From that link



Huh? I wasn't aware of that. Can anyone confirm the part in bold, as I always thought games Ch9 televised into Melbourne, until only a couple of years ago, were after midnight?

i think the Storm played every Saturday afternoon and it was shown live into Melbourne on 9

 

[insert.pause]

Back in the day when Nine would simulcast the fox feed for Broncos games in Brisbane as well.

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

The problem is with saturday FTA, is all the decision makers, the media, the players, the hard core fans have Fox...

We need to think about the other 67% of the population who dont have it...

A kid living in a non fox house, will not grow up falling in love with RL like most of us did,

AFL on the other hand has what 5 FTA games a week beamed into every house in AUS..

Have a think about how you discovered and grew up with RL, it probably wasnt at the ground

Also one of the reasons crowds are so shit...

Hard core fans invest so much in their Fox subscription, its difficult to justify going to the game when youve already paid to have it in your house.

 

[carlosthedwarf]

I don't think ratings would suffer from any overexposure

The problem with overexposure is that it's a slow decline that you don't get back. Just look at Who Wants to be a Millionaire? with Fat Eddie

 

[Perth Red]

Also one of the reasons crowds are so shit...

Hard core fans invest so much in their Fox subscription, its difficult to justify going to the game when youve already paid to have it in your house.

Silly excuse, few fans that can get to games at home are going to buy Fox mainly to watch their own teams. Your not Hoi g to pay $50-100 a month just to watch your home games teams instead of getting a membership that is cheaper and getting to watch them live. Most get fox sports to watch their teams away and neutral 7 other matches week I'd suggest.

Tbh now we get all the fta games in Perth I watch more Motorsport these days than RL on Fox. If it wasn't for SL and the fox RL shows I wouldn't have fox just for RL anymore.

Whatever extra $'s a Thursday night game is worth can hardly be worth screwing the fans again and deterring people from actually going to games. Having said that I think nrl fans just like to use excuses for not going go to games so I guess this will just give them another one.

 

[docbrown]

People seem to be reacting as if these things are set in stone. It's speculation on negotiations still in progress between multiple parties.

Last time around the NRL finally got its house in order and they came up with a series of strategies to bring competitive tension back into the auction process. That means every option is on the table -- not just what the existing rights holders want. It still took a lot of negotiation even after rights were concluded to get Sunday live on free to air even though it was pushed for early on.

Some of these options won't be to everyone's liking but without them on the table it would reduce the NRL's ability to drive up the price. As to whether or not they come to fruition is still up in the air. Last time a lot of people would have bet 10 had it in the bag until Fox got cold feet, so the outcomes are always uncertain. That's just how the process works.

And sure, you can say well we should take less money for keep certain things and it may even come to that in some cases. For example the NRL have several ideas for minimizing the impact of Origin on the competition and networks that shows flexibility would be seen as favourable. Ultimately it's dollars vs impact, but without that there's no pressure on 9 to do anything so it has to be there. Likewise with 5 days -- maximising the number of live standalone timeslots -- it's there to put pressure on 9 & Fox. Will it end up as 5 Days? It depends on how the networks react and they are biting but there's no guarantees. If in the end though it does happen, it wasn't simply done on a whim.

The days of the NRL running the comp on the smell of an oily rag are over. Yes they're not perfect and the game still has plenty of problems but without maximising their monetary potential they'll never fix them.

• A timeline for the 9th game to begin (during next contract) with a 2nd Brisbane/South Queensland and Perth/WA as the two nominated expansion areas - to start in either 1st or 2nd year of new contract
• Stand alone time slots for every game - the keys slots for the 9 games are Thu Night, Fri Night, Sat Arvo, Sat Twilight, Sat Evening, Sat Night, Sun Noon, Sun Arvo, Sun Twilight, Sun Evening, Mon Night -- not every slot will get up though
• Sat Arvo (2/3pm) & Sun Noon worst slots are most likely not to happen
• May end up with 2 Sunday Twilight (4pm) games, Monday more likely to go than Thursdays but may have both, Sunday Evening (after news) no guarantee
• 4-5 of the 9 games on F2A on likely 2 channels -- hazard a guess and say Thursday, Friday, Saturday post News (bigger slot), Sunday pre News + potentially 1 other on Sunday -- actual times will vary dependent on winning channel -- all live obviously
• All games simulcast
• Potentially either a Sunday F2A doubleheader or a multi-channel 2 game viewers choice (with replay of other match afterwards on secondary) -- a Qld team will always feature as one of the 4 teams -- 7 & 9 want to boost the news lead & follow through audience on Sundays
• Origin on Sunday or Monday nights (if not all then at least in part or re-trialled) and potentially split between channels
• Finals & Grand Final may be split between channels

 

[Johnny88]

Sounds interesting reading that DocBrown Thanks for sharing.

 

[elbusto]

Doc brown is da man

 

[Starkers]

I was thinking with Origin on Wednesdays, and in particular for Ch9, moving it until after the season might work a treat. It could bridge part of the gap between the NRL season and the cricket season, which is increasingly filled by the A-League.

Train-on squads would be announced as teams drop out from finals and it would provide a small alternative dialogue during September and an immediate one post the GF. Plus, the weather is way better and there would be no AFL to compete with, so a national audience could be bolstered.

 

[The Elephant In The room]

But they players insist the season is already too long. Poor millionaires, we couldn't possibly put Origin on after the season finishes.

 

[whall15]

I was thinking with Origin on Wednesdays, and in particular for Ch9, moving it until after the season might work a treat. It could bridge part of the gap between the NRL season and the cricket season, which is increasingly filled by the A-League.

Train-on squads would be announced as teams drop out from finals and it would provide a small alternative dialogue during September and an immediate one post the GF. Plus, the weather is way better and there would be no AFL to compete with, so a national audience could be bolstered.

But when would we play internationals?

 

[The Elephant In The room]

But when would we play internationals?

We postpone the NRL for a week as it is for an international. I suggest we do the same later in the season for a game against the Poms :sarcasm:

 

[Nerd]

Tbf that is largely due to regional nsw. Metro ratings are pretty even. Doesn't matter if metro or regional generally but when you add afl TV ratings to the $ value of their large attendances and memberships they are streets ahead. Unless you can translate the extra TV audience to $'s in clubs pockets you have to question if an extra 100k viewers a weekend is better than an extra 100k fans through the gate at games?

Many would say attendances are the best indicator of the interest in the sport as takes money and effort by fans to attend as opposed to sitting on your couch half watching the TV whilst playing on your iPad. 3k people not turning up to a game and watching on TV instead adds little to TV value but is a significant loss for the game.

Last night metro afl got total of 716k across three channels shown so as can see ratings are pretty close. Big difference was there game drew 31k whilst ours only attracted 17k.

I just don't understand why you use metro ratings which ignore regional QLD & NSW viewers. As stated on these forums by many posters 50% of the QLD population live outside Brisbane which by the way is more people than live in Adelaide...