The NRL is Australia’s premier rugby league competition, a cultural institution that sits at the heart of the country’s sporting landscape. It combines athleticism, bone-rattling physicality and fierce local rivalries with the kind of tribal passion that sees entire families, suburbs and regions emotionally invested every weekend.
And unless you live under a rock, you would have seen the fierce off-field battle between networks for the prestigious NRL broadcast rights. Formal pitching began 26 May, and there are a few broadcasters who are looking to shake up where NRL can be watched, which has sat with both Foxtel and Nine since 1997 and 1992 respectively.
The sporting competition is looking to have the rights finalised before Andrew Abdo, the NRL CEO departs the business on 15 July. But, before D-Day here is what the media has reported what offers have been tabled by various broadcasters and streaming platforms.
Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime Video has lobbied to own a small piece of the rights. This was reported in the the Australian Financial Review, “two people with knowledge of the negotiations who requested anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly said Prime Video wanted to own one night a week – Friday, for example.”
Amazon did not respond to AFR‘s request for comment.
This follows Peter V’landys the chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) and soon to be interim NRL chief executive reportedly telling stakeholders for weeks that Prime Video is interested.
This also 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.
For this bid to go through, NRL would have to slice and dice its rights. Which is something that has been occurring in overseas competitions. For example, the Premier League is broadcasted to its UK fans via Sky Sports, TNT Sports and highlights on BBC Sport. And in the US the NBA is broadcasted across ESPN, ABC, NBC, Peacock and Amazon Prime Video.
The criticism about this format is that fans need to have numerous subscriptions to watch their team. And if they don’t have the money for multiple subscriptions then ultimately the sport is locking out fans from watching.
Seven
Seven who currently hold the rights to NRL’s biggest revival the AFL, has reportedly lifted a paddle for Monday night Football—if that timeslot is resurrected by the sporting body to accommodate for the extra game in 2028—and at least one other club game, possibly a Sunday fixture, according to The Australian.
This follows the unexpected investment backing by billionaire Gina Rinehart. Rinehart was recently revealed as the financial backer behind former Seven executive Bruce McWilliam’s nine per cent stake in the merged Southern Cross Media business. Southern Cross declined to comment in the AFR and The Australian.
MD of Southern Cross Media, Rohan Lund suggested Seven also wants to get its hands on the ratings juggernaut, the State of Origin series.
“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.”
Nine
Nine reportedly pitched to buy all of the NRL broadcast rights in a bid to up its current free-to-air deal, according to the the AFR.
As it currently stands Nine broadcasts three NRL games a week, the finals series and exclusively both the grand final and the 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.
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.”
Nine decline all chats around ongoing rights deals.
Foxtel
Following Nine’s pitch to remove Foxtel from the rights, the DAZN owned network has hit back, by trying to scrub Nine out.
According to the AFR, “the media company had pitched for all the NRL rights and had then spoken over the past week to both the Seven and Ten television networks about them broadcasting some of the games on free-to-air”. This tip off came from two people with knowledge of Foxtel’s NRL negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the bid.
The strategy would remove the Nine Network as an NRL broadcaster for the first time since 1992.
The reason Foxtel has called upon Nine’s rivals is because it cannot go the rights alone due to Australia’s anti-siphoning laws. These laws are designed to prevent major sporting events from going entirely behind paywalls. Foxtel declined AFR‘s request to comment.
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.”
This multi-billion dollar battle for the rights is important for advertisers because whoever holds the rights to broadcast the game controls access to one of the most valuable audiences in the country: live sport viewers. And live sport is one of the last remaining formats people reliably watch in real time rather than on demand.
It was just a week ago that the State of Origin delivered a national total TV reach of 5.771 million and a total TV audience of 3.995 million. This is the highest total TV result for a State of Origin match in VOZ history.
