NRL's fans get access to games from the early days
* Simon Canning
* From: The Australian
* August 09, 2010 12:00AM
THE National Rugby League has launched the next phase of its media expansion.
It is selling archived footage to consumers in a move that will also have an impact on its upcoming broadcast negotiations.
The NRL began work on the archive more than a year ago as part of its centenary year celebrations, pulling together footage of games in a digital format, which it then made available to advertisers to use in campaigns.
But the league has now gone a step further, opening the archive directly to fans and allowing them access to games stretching back through the history of the code. So far, the NRL has invested more that $1.2 million compiling the footage and setting up a system to create the searchable digital archive.
Revenue from the initiative has begun to flow with the code now earning between $300,000 and $400,000 annually from sales, initially to advertisers and content creators.
Ownership of the footage and the ability of the NRL to derive revenue from it is expected to be an important element of the broadcast rights negotiations with the league when they start next year.
The NRL will have separate archives in its own area that will be negotiated independently of the broadcast rights. "It goes to create real value on its own, not just as an add-on," NRL director of communications John Brady said. The league has managed to bring together more than 16,000 pieces of archive footage and has digitised more than 7000 hours of film so far.
Shane Mattiske, director of strategy and special projects at the NRL, said bringing together the footage in a single archive had made the footage much more valuable to the NRL, both from a commercial and historic perspective. The NRL has had to negotiate with the ABC, Seven, Nine and Ten to get the footage.
