Global streaming titan Amazon is reportedly interested in making a play for the upcoming NRL broadcast rights.
The Financial Review has reported that Amazon is planning to submit an offer to the NRL for the rights through its streaming arm Prime Video.
Peter V’landys the chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) and soon to be interim NRL chief executive has reportedly been telling stakeholders for weeks that Prime Video is interested, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations. Others close to Amazon are reportedly aware of the streamer’s intentions, too.
This aligns with the streaming giant’s ambitions, which were laid bare by Jay Marine, chief of Amazon Prime Video’s global sports and advertising division on a podcast late last year.
“We want to have top premier sports in every major Prime country we operate in,” he told US sports journalist Andrew Marchand.
Amazon currently holds the exclusive Australian broadcast rights for all International Cricket Council (ICC) major tournaments until the end of 2027. But, it doesn’t have a major sports competition here in the country.
The closest it has is Final Siren: Inside the AFL, a four-part docuseries capturing the passion and drama of the AFL.
“In the country you live in, we want to have your favourite sport that you care about … In Europe, that’s now Champions League soccer. In Brazil, we have soccer as well. In Canada, we have [National Hockey League], and you see what we’re doing in the US,” he added.
He said Amazon needed to pay top dollar to acquire these rights. “Our view is it’s better to pay up for those things, and partly if we’re going to do something, we’re going to do it well. We’re going to invest.”
Could Amazon be the answer to V’landys’ quest of landing a rights deal for the NRL worth more than $4 billion over five years? This would make it bigger than the AFL’s six-year $4.5 billion deal.
B&T has contacted Amazon for contact.
The news follows as NRL CEO Andrew Abdo announced he would be leaving the NRL after six years to take up the top job at Tennis Australia.
“It’s in a very important time for rugby league. We’ve got the biggest deal we’ll ever do in the broadcast deal,” V’landys told reporters on Monday. “We’ll get that done hopefully before the 15th of July, before Andrew goes.”
Abdo replaces Craig Tiley, who has taken over as the United States Tennis Association’s CEO.
Preliminary bids are due today for the NRL’s suite of television broadcast rights. So who else is expected to raise a paddle?
The current rights holders are Nine and Foxtel. The latter of which owns the Kayo Sport platform and was bought last year by international sports streamer Dazn. The deal that ends at the conclusion of the 2027 season is reportedly worth $1.7 billion deal. This was signed back in 2020, when the code was in a much weaker position as it was in the haze of a global pandemic.
As part of the current deal Nine is the only free-to-air television broadcaster in Australia, with three regular-season games a week, as well as all finals games broadcast across the network. Nine also has the exclusive rights to air the State of Origin match-up between NSW and QLD.
Nine has held the NRL rights since 1991, and with sport playing an integral role in its offering it is hard to see the free-to-air broadcaster not gunning to keep the rights.
The only free-to-air broadcaster that could steal pinch the rights from Nine is Seven. But the broadcaster is only interested in picking up a Monday night game and the State of Origin series.
Seven could only get the NRL rights to Monday Night Football if the sport’s powerbrokers decided to reinstate that weekly timeslot during the home-and-away season.
MD of Southern Cross Media, Rohan Lund suggested Seven has bolder ambitions with regards to the NRL, than just a Monday game.
“State of Origin is one of the premier events on the Australian sports calendar. Of course it’s something I would be interested in. If we were going to make a play for the NRL, I don’t know why we would only look at one game,” Lund said during his first week in the role.
“I don’t want to be caught up playing in a sandpit where just a couple of the kids are kicking sand at each other, when the real oval is over here and there’s a bigger game going on.
“Like news, live sport lets us take the fight against the digital noise.”
On the paid front, Foxtel will be looking to retain the rights.
Back in November of 2025, Foxtel Group CEO Patrick Delany made it clear to B&T that Foxtel intends to be at the table and intends to compete. Foxtel, he said, “loves the NRL” and is preparing a formal bid to renew the rights.
“We have been the NRL’s paid TV partner for over 20 years,” he said. “As a partner of the NRL, we have helped shape the current voice, look and feel. We’ve certainly pushed the NRL globally. We run Watch NRL for overseas viewers. We made sure that the NRL was on Fox in America. We made sure it was on Sky in the UK. So we’re ready to renew.”
B&T has contacted Seven, Nine and Foxtel for comment.
