Updated ,first published
Nine and Foxtel will today announce a multibillion-dollar agreement to keep airing the NRL in what is the most expensive rights deal for an Australian sporting code in history.
The deal, which is set to run until 2034, and will be announced within hours, makes the sportโs airing rights more valuable than the AFL, a longstanding goal of the Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter Vโlandys.
This masthead has previously reported that the NRL agreed to a seven-year $5 billion deal with its existing broadcast partners, which includes $150 million annually from Nine for the free-to-air TV rights, with Foxtel paying $520 million annually for the pay TV component.
It eclipses AFLโs record $4.5 billion deal over seven years, which the rival sport signed in 2022 and which runs from 2025 to 2031, despite mainstream media companies coming under increasing cost pressures in the years since.
The deal comes ahead of Origin III, and before the departure of NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo.
The deal will also retain the long-time status quo in NRL coverage, with the NRL reaping the benefits of competitive tension in the market during the bidding process to push up the price. Both Nine, owner of this masthead, and Foxtel, separately pitched bids to take on the rights in full and effectively cut out the other. Other media companies were also interested.
Nine pitched a deal that would have taken the sport off Foxtel, and put more games on its subscription streaming platform Stan.
Foxtel, which was last year bought by DAZN, the global streaming company owned by billionaire businessman Sir Leonard Blavatnik, also wanted the whole rights, however such a deal would have struggled to comply with Australiaโs anti-siphoning laws, which ensure certain major sporting events must remain on free-to-air television. Foxtel would have been forced to on-sell games to either Nine or Seven.
Amazonโs streaming service Prime Video also pitched for up to two matches a week, while Southern Cross Media, the owner of Seven Network, also making a play.
The record deal achieves Vโlandysโ long-standing goal of beating the AFL, and defies a downturn in the television advertising market and the potential impacts of the Albanese governmentโs impending gambling advertising restrictions on broadcasters.
The increase in the NRLโs value reflects that fact that live sport remains one of the few areas where traditional broadcasters can distinguish themselves from online rivals like YouTube and TikTok.
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Kishor Napier-Raman is a senior business writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Previously he worked as a CBD columnist and reporter in the federal parliamentary press gallery.Connect via X or email.
Chris Barrett is a senior sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former South-East Asia correspondent for the Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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