NRL Broadcast Rights (2027-?)

Marks was quoted saying it in 2020 when he applied pressure to renegotiate the 2018-2022 deal.

I haven’t seen anything remotely close to it from Sneesby.

I said it at the time Marks made the comments about walking away, and I’ll say it again - if it actually came to a situation where Nine couldn’t get the deal they wanted (especially with Stan in the mix) would they indeed walk away?

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This must’ve been the article or quotes I was thinking of (late 2022):

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/did-nine-bid-include-sacrificing-the-nrl/news-story/590c7a2324b53256629d77f28748531d?amp

I read the article as the usual News Corp tactics of trying to drive a wedge between 9 and the NRL

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A free to air US deal?

Haha. Don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in my life.

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With PVL anything could be true, but this article seems to add 2 and 2 together and seems to get 5.

It seems nothing more than a tenuous link between Lachlan Murdoch being at the game and that being subscription only hurts sports in Australia, ergo the same applies in the US.

Does Weidler know that the amount of sport on national FTA in the US is fairly limited (arguably a hell of a lot more limited than what we can access here) and that the availability of the likes of FS1 and ESPN is nearly half of all US households?

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Isn’t stuff like NFL & NBA on ABC the simulcast of what’s on ESPN? I think the one of only sports that’s normally on FTA is NFL games?

FS1 and ESPN is nearly half of all US households?

I think ESPN had 1.5mill viewers for their college basketball game (8pm start) & FOX also had 1.3mill viewers for their college basketball game (8pm start) on the night NRL had their game on FS1, their lead in college basketball game on FS1 has around 165k (7:30pm start)

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I think that’s because ESPN is normally in the box seat to get most major sports rights and ABC shut down their sports department to just simulcast ESPN coverage (and obviously Disney would rather ABC got the FTA portion of the rights than find another partner).

MLB has 2-3 games on Fox every Saturday and some Thursday night games (not just FS1 simulcasts). A lot of college sport on FTA as well (March Madness on CBS for example although the rights are alternated with Turner for that). And when NBC had the NHL rights, the games on NBC weren’t simulcasted on NBCSN (ESPN weren’t involved in those rights).

I always thought it was the other way round most of the time. They have a host broadcaster then ESPN do a simulcast with their own water marks and commentators?

When it comes to the NFL, ABC airs 3 exclusive games each season while several other games air on both ESPN & ABC (including a Saturday doubleheader in the final week of the regular season, a Monday night Wild Card playoff game, a Divisional playoff game and the Pro Bowl).

As for the NBA, think the only ABC games which are typically simulcasted on ESPN are the Christmas Day games so that all 5 games played that day can be seen on ESPN.

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This would be a disaster for rugby league if this lunatic is involved in brokering rights deals. He has a massive conflict of interest despite leaving seven soon.

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If Warburton joins after he finishes with 7 I don’t see it’s an issue. The ARLC could do with some expertise after PVL botched the last negotiation.

There will be an inherent bias towards a seven/fox deal. He’s proven in the past to be most unprofessional.

V’landys hasn’t exactly hidden his desire for Seven to get involved in the league TV rights either - he’s made it obvious that he has a much better relationship with Seven than he does with Nine (no doubt on the back of his Racing NSW work)

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I wouldn’t mind seeing 9/Stan claim all the rights

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I doubt they’ll be able to afford it or if they managed to would potentially become a commercially volatile situation for NEC.

Olympics + TA/Australian Open + Melbourne Cup + entire domestic Rugby League including SOO and NRL GF on top of the other sports and expenses for the rest of the Nine Network, 9Now and especially svod Stan. Can’t see how Costello and board would get close to signing off on that, but good luck to them.

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9’s head of sport has said:

“Our aim now is that any sports rights deal we do is all rights, all platforms, and exclusive where we can. We house those across linear channels, our streaming channels with 9Now, our subscription streaming platform Stan, radio, and mastheads.

“That is what we’ve done with the Olympics – the Olympics deal is all rights, all platforms. Our Australian Open tennis deal is all rights, all platforms. Rugby League is probably the only deal at the moment in our stable that isn’t all rights, all platforms – but in saying that, when the last subscription rights deal was done for rugby league, Stan Sport didn’t exist. I would say it’s definitely something we’ll look at for 2028.”

Obviously cares a lot about their WNBL deal they share with ESPN.

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What