Nine has reportedly pitched to buy all of the NRL broadcast rights in a bid to up its current free-to-air deal, according to the Australian Financial Review.
As it currently stands Nine broadcasts three NRL games a week, the finals series and exclusively both the grand final and the ratings juggernaut, State of Origin.
If Nine’s bid to bring Stan into the mix is successful, then the Australian media giant will have the rights for every single game from 2028 onwards.
Jack Playfair, head of partnerships at M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment told B&T that Nine should go all in.
“Channel Nine is the home of rugby league, Nine will always be the home of rugby league and tonight will be a demonstration of that with the State of Origin,” he said.
“The sport’s only getting bigger, people are craving experiences and craving being connected to people through sport, through passion.
“Streaming is the way that we’re going to consume sport and entertainment moving forward, it’s a no brainer. And the major channels of Seven, Nine and 10 need to evolve with the times.”
The high-stakes move will strengthen its streaming platform Stan, whilst for the first time since 1997 rub Foxtel off the NRL rights.
The AFR reported that “Nine chief executive Matt Stanton personally led the company’s presentation alongside broadcast and streaming boss Amanda Laing to Australian Rugby League Commission chair Peter V’landys and outgoing NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo on Tuesday.”
Going off V’landys asking price of $4 billion covering the five years from 2028, the proposed deal would be quite handsome. It is a gutsy move, and one that involves a long-term contract worth far more than Nine’s current market capitalisation of $1.5 billion.
Playfair said however, the alleged big play from Nine would be “absolutely worth it,” almost whatever the cost.
“Nine are going to be able to monopolise their revenue. The revenue and commercial ad space will go up being with Stan, and they need to do that, because if think about Kayo, they don’t have ads, they just have subscription model, that’s where they make their revenue,” he added.
Nine has held the rights for more than 30 years which puts the media giant in a strong position to retain its free-to-air rights, but it’s the subscription/digital television side that is very interesting at the moment.
Nine declined to comment.
