NRL plans TV broadcast rights hardball
* James Chessell
* From: The Australian
* March 22, 2010 12:00AM
THE creation of an independent commission to control rugby league will not alter the NRL's plans to use a sub-committee containing club representatives to advise it on the upcoming television broadcast rights negotiations.
The committee -- which includes Wests Tigers chief executive Stephen Humphreys, Bulldogs chief Todd Greenberg, St George Illawarra chief Peter Doust, North Queensland boss Peter Parr and consultancy LEK -- was established to ensure club involvement in critical broadcast negotiations before the present deal expires in 2012.
"It's a really good indicator that the NRL wants to involve the clubs," Mr Greenberg said.
"The change of ownership won't change things too dramatically . . . but it may mean negotiations are less convoluted."
Media group News Limited will relinquish its 50 per cent stake in rugby league as part of the creation of the single governing body, in a move partly aimed at ending accusations of a conflict of interest. News, which publishes The Australian, owns 25 per cent of pay-TV operator Foxtel, 50 per cent of the producer of Fox Sports and "rugby league newspapers" such as The Daily Telegraph and The Courier Mail. It will retain its first-and-last refusal rights for pay-TV until at least 2022.
The current NRL broadcast deal struck with Nine and Fox Sports in July 2005 is worth about $100 million a year and is regularly compared with the more lucrative five-year deal the AFL was able to secure in late 2005 when Seven, Ten and Foxtel were forced to match a $780m Nine bid by the late Kerry Packer. The NRL is expected to achieve a much-improved number this time given the popularity of rugby league in the growing Queensland market, the emergence of Seven as a serious bidder and the importance of mass-markets sports in a fragmenting media environment.
Mr Gallop said he would be prepared to increase the total price by selling parts of the game such as the high-rating State of Origin series, or to adopt the AFL approach and have the club competition broadcast on different free-to-air networks.
Seven chief executive David Leckie has set the scene for a tense round of discussions with his claim that his network -- whose shareholders include private equity group KKR and Kerry Stokes -- has the financial muscle to mount serious bids for AFL and NRL. For its part, Nine's private equity owner CVC Asia Pacific has been prepared to make big investments in television programs such as Top Gear.
Mr Gallop has said the AFL earns more on the free-to-air side -- where News Ltd does not have an interest -- and is keen to maximise the price paid by the networks likely to get a favourable outcome from Communications Minister Stephen Conrory's review of the anti-siphoning list of sport protected from pay-TV.
"We are certainly open to the idea of more than one free-to-air network (broadcasting rugby league)," Mr Gallop said. "But at the same time we recognise the value of exclusivity.
"For example, it is valuable that State of Origin gets talked about during Nine's coverage of the regular season. These are the sorts of considerations we must weigh up.
"There are obvious advantages to having the club competition on two networks because you are getting value inside the broadcast and in the exposure."
