AFL?s TV rights deal makes NRL CEO Dave Smith?s Channel Nine agreement look like an ?own goal?
Rebecca Wilson:
FOR seven days, NRL boss Dave Smith must have thought his spring had come early. A new free-to-air television rights deal with Channel Nine, carved out much earlier than anyone had expected, was trumpeted from his Moore Park rooftop.
Smith had snuck in under the radar of Fox Sports and Nine?s other two free-to-air competitors, Channels Seven and Ten. He had done the deal in secret, not even informing long time partners Foxtel of what was coming.
So smug was Smith about the deal that he told anyone who would listen that Foxtel would now have no choice but to jump on and pay top dollar for the dregs of the games.
No matter that he had taken their two hottest properties ? Saturday and Monday nights ? and handed the gold to Channel Nine.
Above all, he had triumphed by announcing the deal, all on his own and with great fanfare, on the same day that Rupert Murdoch hosted his international News Corporation board at a flash Sydney lunch.
Smith attended the lunch, attracting attention for leaving early with a smug smile on his face. The humiliation for Foxtel and News was complete.
Today, Smith and his chairman, John Grant stand badly gazumped, scoring what one media veteran described as the ?worst own goal? in the sport?s history.
While Smith handed the keys to the treasure chest to Channel Nine, effectively giving David Gyngell the (now apparently too cheap) right to use the television games however he liked, the error of his ways has slowly started to sink in.
While he is saving face by claiming he will outplay Foxtel in a game of brinkmanship, there is now no doubt that the money he expected to drop into the NRL?s account will be way short of the billion dollars he needs to bring this deal up to anywhere near the big AFL numbers.
By completely ignoring partners Foxtel and Telstra, Smith has thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
His refusal to allow Channels Seven and Nine to compete for a game, and offering just about everything worthwhile to Gyngell, means he has cheapened his product enormously. Both channels asked for the right to present to Smith. He ignored them.
If Channel Nine decides to rid itself of a game or two, and sell them to Seven or Ten, the only winner will be the network, not rugby league. Gyngell is now a wholesaler able to flog a product at top dollar without any input from the body that owns it.
Not only that. The 16 league clubs will have to wait a year longer than the AFL clubs to share in the windfall. Little wonder
12 of them are seriously considering
not signing their participation agreements.
So why take such a huge risk? Smith did not need to do this, a full eighteen months before a decision was due. He could have waited, consulted and listened to what every broadcaster had to offer.
I?m told he was so desperate to do the deal with Nine that he even left his senior corporate advisers out of discussions at the end.
Rupert Murdoch fought tooth and nail to own rugby league and to control the television rights into perpetuity. He showed he would pay through the nose for them too.
Now he has switched his allegiances and made it clear league is a poor relation. You can say what you like about media moguls but professional football needs them to come up with the killer dollars to survive.
One former NRL board member was in a state of shock when last week?s deal was sealed and heralded as a victory for the code. It has taken just one week and several very cranky media owners to confirm that he was right. The league deal stinks and Smith, as its architect, must now face the consequences.
http://www.news.com.au/national/afl...like-an-own-goal/story-e6frfkp9-1227490104634
