NRL to ditch digital arm

NRL scales back digital arm following broadcaster pressure​

By Zoe Samios​

October 6, 2021 — 3.53pm

The National Rugby League has bowed to pressure from its media partners and decided to scale down its digital content arm in a move that is expected to result in several redundancies at the organisation.

The shift, led by the NRL’s recently appointed chief customer and digital officer Alexi Baker, is part of an ongoing effort to streamline operations at the NRL to save costs and better serve fans. But it will also be considered a win for the company’s two media partners - Nine Entertainment Co and News Corp Foxtel - which have long expressed frustration about the division and argue the NRL’s own website competes with their digital properties.

Staff at the NRL were informed about the change on Wednesday afternoon and about 10 redundancies are expected to take place over the next few weeks. Staff who appeared at the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they were not given the opportunity to ask questions.

Under the plans the NRL will move away from creating news-focused content and work more closely with Nine (which is the owner of this masthead) and News Corp-controlled Foxtel on joint projects. The NRL website will mainly feature highlights and short-form videos that entertain fans instead of breaking news. The NRL was approached for comment but did not respond by deadline.

The NRL Digital Network officially launched in 2018 after the organisation took control of its digital assets from Telstra, an arrangement formed under the terms of its $1 billion broadcasting rights deal with Nine and Foxtel. The deal was a significant change in strategy for the NRL and involved the clubs investing money in digital rather than outsourcing it to media partners.

The network is currently made up of five parts including NRL.com, and sites and apps for the competition’s 16 teams. As of last year, the digital unit employed about 80 staff, including a product and technology arm with designers, developers and engineers who ensure the digital products work for fans. It has a media services division which handles game archives and images taken at matches, digital marketing and social media, a data and insights team, and employs about eight journalists who cover matches and interview players and coaches.

This is the first major change for NRL digital division since the arrival of Ms Baker (who previously led negotiations at Nine), who has undertaken a review of the organisation’s media arm. In late August, the NRL notified high-profile ex players and coaches such as Jamie Soward, Brett Kimmorley, Anthony Seibold and Robbie Farah that the website would no longer feature panel shows.

The restructure comes as the NRL prepares to propose the Redcliffe Dolphins as the expansion team for 2023 after agreeing to a deal with News Corp to inject at least $75 million into the sport over five years. Sources with knowledge of discussions told the Herald earlier this week that the NRL is providing the News Corp-owned Brisbane Broncos will an increase in exclusive matches, which will ultimately reduce the number of free-to-air games.

The NRL is presenting to the 16 clubs on Thursday and will provide them with details on how they plan to finance a 17th team. Any savings generated by the NRL could help with the justification of a new team.

NRL scales back digital arm following broadcaster pressure (smh.com.au)

 

[titoelcolombiano]

smacks more of appeasing your paymasters and not having the foresight to understand what the platform can deliver in the future. But this is RL and that just about sums up our leadership tbf.

you wouldn't be laying off the news arm of the business if someone else was paying. Control of your own narrative is massive, especially given the quality of our media partners who now control both tv, print and social media outlets.

I see what you are saying mate but if they want to in the future they can ramp it up again. Also, Telstra pay AFL to forego the revenue, the NRL might have done a similar deal because we don't actually know the fine print.

 

[Perth Red]

I see what you are saying mate but if they want to in the future they can ramp it up again. Also, Telstra pay AFL to forego the revenue, the NRL might have done a similar deal because we don't actually know the fine print.

My understanding from that wiki page was Telstra receive the revenue from the AFL digital arm and in return pay the AFL X amount as part of their overall deal. This means AFL still has its own media team and content production putting out the news it wants its fans to see and driving fans to its platform. That is very different to what the NRL is doing which is closing down its media operations, presumably at the behest of its media partners who would rather fans were reading their stories and visiting their websites. If the media partners are paying for this or if its a goodwill move by the NRL we have no idea in this world of Vlandys cloak and daggers.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

My understanding from that wiki page was Telstra receive the revenue from the AFL digital arm and in return pay the AFL X amount as part of their overall deal. This means AFL still has its own media team and content production putting out the news it wants its fans to see and driving fans to its platform. That is very different to what the NRL is doing which is closing down its media operations, presumably at the behest of its media partners who would rather fans were reading their stories and visiting their websites. If the media partners are paying for this or if its a goodwill move by the NRL we have no idea in this world of Vlandys cloak and daggers.

Well, they are scaling it back, not shutting it down and to be fair, we don't know the financial details. It could be worth it for us to do that at this point. I would definitely like to find that out either way though.

 

[baselinepanther]

smacks more of appeasing your paymasters and not having the foresight to understand what the platform can deliver in the future. But this is RL and that just about sums up our leadership tbf.

you wouldn't be laying off the news arm of the business if someone else was paying. Control of your own narrative is massive, especially given the quality of our media partners who now control both tv, print and social media outlets.

of course you'd be laying people off you clown , they're media companies ... they have their own staff lol

it smacks of nothing
as titoecolombania said , we can take back control of our digital rights at any time in the future

hell as soon as 2028
so quit your bleating , its embarrassing

 

[Perth Red]

of course you'd be laying people off you clown , they're media companies ... they have their own staff lol

it smacks of nothing
as titoecolombania said , we can take back control of our digital rights at any time in the future

hell as soon as 2028
so quit your bleating , its embarrassing

the world must be a rosey place through those PVL glasses!

Its the NRL thats laying its media people off as it will no longer create its own stories and news. Maybe you see it as a good thing, most would see it as a retrograde step given the quality of our media partners, money aside as we dont know if its a better or no deal. You have no idea if or when we can take it back, you dont know what deal Vlandys has done over it. It took us a long long time to wrestle them back, its not as easy as you might think obviously.

 

[LeagueXIII]

Here’s a sure thing: sports betting is changing the media business model​

Gambling is consuming professional sport. Odds are it'll eat traditional media too.

CHRISTOPHER WARREN

JUN 15, 2021


There’s a new stream of sin-generated revenue splashing through town: sports betting. It’s a big business that’s already eating professional sport. Looks like it could eat media, too.

In Australia, News Corp is leading the pack with speculation that heir-apparent Lachlan Murdoch is eager to follow fellow billionaire’s-son James Packer (and former US president Donald Trump) into gambling through an ownership and licensing stake in the $2 billion revenues of Tabcorp’s sports betting arm.

Add ownership to the ad dollars the betting industry already provides, mix in the traditional media reluctance to bite the hand that feeds it, and its odds-on that sports reporting will increasingly follow the (gambling) money. Odds-on, too, that old media will lend its lobbying clout to push for deregulation and tax cuts for the industry.
Let’s be honest: media have never been shy of scooping the froth of sin-generated cash flows, whether they’re the tabloid-mediated soft porn of page three girls and discreetly positioned “adult” ads in the classifieds or the broadcast blaring of the cigarette naming rights sponsorships that once branded the country’s football and cricket.
Right now it’s the insert forms and betting guides paid for by the racing industry that keep print papers going.

​

Sports betting is treading that well-worn track from sin to respectability, smoothed through broadcast or streamed spectator sport coupled with internet-enabled gambling.
It’s being hurried along by governments eager for their cut of betting revenues. Delaware-based News Corp has had its interest piqued as the large US market opens up after the 2018 US Supreme Court decision to strike down a long-standing ban on sports betting as unconstitutional.
In Australia, sports betting has expanded from horses and dogs to, well, just about everything. It’s a coupon-clipping turnover business, scooping about 10% (or about $4 billion) from the betting pool. It’s growth strategy? Grow the pool to grow the clip.
Sport fans need to be turned into sport betters, through broadcast ads, reporting of odds as “news”, and sponsorship of teams and sporting organisations that sell a more social gambling experience than the solitude of the pokies.

News Corp is betting it can leverage the otherwise declining value of its sports broadcast rights through Foxtel and Kayo by powering the engagement of the spectator. Don’t just watch. You, too, can have skin in the game. Win-win: more betters, more engaged viewers.
It worked for the company with Sky Betting & Gaming in the UK, leveraged off the rights of the Murdoch family-controlled Sky to broadcast English football.The family companies sold out of British betting after they lost control of Sky in 2017. They’re attempting to replicate the result in the US with Fox Bet. Last year they began looking for partners with the necessary technical expertise to set odds and handle turnover in Australia.
In February, Australia’s largest handler, the $11 billion Tabcorp, said it had received “unsolicited” offers for its sports betting arm, firmed up to two by the Nine mastheads last month: $3.5 billion in hard cash by UK group Entain and $4 billion in not-so-hard cash-and-scrip by rumoured News Corp partner BetMakers.
News Corp isn’t new to the game. Cash rewards through an inserted bingo game helped The Daily Mirror to victory in its long Sydney afternoons war with Fairfax’s The Sun. In 1979, Murdoch partnered with Kerry Packer and British businessman Robert Sangster for the (otherwise untendered) licence to run football pools in NSW.
More traditionally, Australia’s media barons have been on the other side, as owners and punters, bringing its own pressure on media content: back in the early days of television, James Packer’s grandfather, Sir Frank, demanded his Nine station interrupt Saturday night programming to rerun the race his horse Foresight won that day. A brave night producer spluttered it had already been on the nightly news.
“Run it again. I was on the toilet,” ordered the audience of one.

Sir Frank’s (literal) sparring partner Ezra Norton used his papers to urge the then three-year-old Tulloch be withdrawn from the 1957 Melbourne Cup. Too young for the weight apparently. “Don’t Kill Our Champ” shouted the posters of his The Daily Mirror. Tulloch’s scratching cleared the way for Norton’s horse, Straight Draw, to win the cup in its place.
Reporting shaped journalism from metaphors (think: the political horse race) to myths. It drew some of the most graceful and writerly of journalists, like Banjo Paterson (who took his reporting gifts to write The Man from Snowy River) or Bert “Cardigan” Wolfe in Melbourne’s pre-war The Herald who crafted the Phar Lap legend as we know it, or Bert Lillye who wrote Australian racing into “the sport of kings” in The Sydney Morning Herald in the 1960s and ’70s.
The difference this time? Media owners have swapped sides from the painter of the moment for risk-taking punters to the more predictable coupon-clipper of the bookmaker.

Here’s a sure thing: sports betting is changing the media business model

Gambling is consuming professional sport. Odds are it'll eat traditional media too.

www.crikey.com.au

​

 

[Perth Red]

Look forward to the day gambling advertising is banned during sports broadcasts. Its cringeworthy watching the likes of Laurie Daly spruik the odds.

 

[LeagueXIII]

Don't hold your breath on that one, it's only going to ramp up.

 

[Perth Red]

Don't hold your breath on that one, it's only going to ramp up.

Hopefully it goes the way of smoking ads.

 

[Colk]

You are on the money, particularly for League.

I think when you have the head of racing NSW also as the head of league and News Ltd doing so many favourable pieces about him, it is obvious that PVL is setting them up for a nice pay on league gambling, maybe some exclusivity arrangements

 

[Perth Red]

You are on the money, particularly for League.

I think when you have the head of racing NSW also as the head of league and News Ltd doing so many favourable pieces about him, it is obvious that PVL is setting them up for a nice day on league gambling, maybe some exclusivity arrangements

No doubts at all. all of this friendliness from news ltd has a big price tag attached I’m sure. They don’t do anything unless it makes them more money. It’s shocking really that he refuses to tell the games stakeholders what deal he has done with them, and that no one is calling him out on it.

 

[LeagueXIII]

You are on the money, particularly for League.

I think when you have the head of racing NSW also as the head of league and News Ltd doing so many favourable pieces about him, it is obvious that PVL is setting them up for a nice day on league gambling, maybe some exclusivity arrangements

And have access to the leagues data base which is what they wanted.....we will be bombarded with gambling ads

 

[Colk]

And have access to the leagues data base which is what they wanted.....we will be bombarded with gambling ads

You can bet on it (sorry for the cringeworthy pun)

 

[LeagueXIII]

Is this a possible scenario?

V'landys sells off the Digital Database to News Corp which helps them massively with their reach for their new sports betting business. The NRL also shuts down the digital arm ie. competitor to News Corp and Nine. In return as part of the new "partnership" the NRL gets a percentage of the gambling revenue.

 

[Perth Red]

Is this a possible scenario?

V'landys sells off the Digital Database to News Corp which helps them massively with their reach for their new sports betting business. The NRL also shuts down the digital arm ie. competitor to News Corp and Nine. In return as part of the new "partnership" the NRL gets a percentage of the gambling revenue.

Possibly. NRL does get a % of gambling though already as part of deals struck with betting agencies for them to use NRL content and brand.

New NRL 'super tax' to include all finals and State of Origin | Betting Site

The NRL and Australia's bookies are locked in a standoff over plans to raise betting taxes.

bettingsite.com.au

 

[Perth Red]

Well looks like News ltd plan worked. I hardly see any NRL.com news popping up on my feeds anymore and its all Foxsports.com. Be interesting to see how the NRL spin the drop off of traffic to their website in the next annual report, or if past form is anything to go on they will just bury it and not report any numbers like they have done with media revenue and player participation numbers. At least they buried he digital revenue line so we cant see how much its costing the game!

 

[Generalzod]

Well looks like News ltd plan worked. I hardly see any NRL.com news popping up on my feeds anymore and its all Foxsports.com. Be interesting to see how the NRL spin the drop off of traffic to their website in the next annual report, or if past form is anything to go on they will just bury it and not report any numbers like they have done with media revenue and player participation numbers. At least they buried he digital revenue line so we cant see how much its costing the game!

The NRL an organisation that loves taking control of their own content (NOT)

 

[Vee]

Well looks like News ltd plan worked. I hardly see any NRL.com news popping up on my feeds anymore and its all Foxsports.com. Be interesting to see how the NRL spin the drop off of traffic to their website in the next annual report, or if past form is anything to go on they will just bury it and not report any numbers like they have done with media revenue and player participation numbers. At least they buried he digital revenue line so we cant see how much its costing the game!

Like offsiders, I've stopped visiting nrl.com

 

[Perth Tiger]

It is a shame, NRL.com had articles that were actually interesting and showed a glimpse of what it is like in footy clubs.

Foxsport article are just clickbait garbage or agenda driven like the recent article all about Anasta's (who is a player agent) complaining that Parra's retention tactics make it hard for player agents to get more money.

 

[The Man Shake]

It's okay we can all read about Paul Gallen's self promotion ahead of his next fight, Bwaith Anasta's opinion on everything and player speculation without any actual input from the players because they won't talk to the News Limited muckrakers. It's the standard of journalism the punters want that you just don't get with NRL.com.