From 2017 on, the game’s timeslot will be shifted to Friday at 6pm.
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The NRL have announced a new broadcast rights deal worth $1.8 billion across five years beginning in 2018. Including worldwide and radio rights, the value is expected to top A$1.9 billion, it said.
Discussions between News the NRL and Nine heated up this week with executives from all three locked in three successive days and nights of negotiations that ultimately led to Friday’s confirmation that Fox Sports would telecast all eight matches live and buy back exclusive access to the Saturday match from Nine for $300 million over five years.
Australia’sFox Sports pay-TV subsidiary will show every game ad-free from next year.
While the deal is a win for Fox Sport and News Corp, the NRL is the biggest victor, managing to achieve the broadest possible platform for the code. Nine has extracted a big price from News for that, but it is a canny move by Delany, using the savings from losing the English Premier League rights to Optus recently. Super Saturday will be retained by the broadcaster with three live games each Saturday.
After the NRL announced its deal with Nine earlier in the year, News Corp delivered a thinly veiled swipe at the 13-man code.
Announcing a A$2.508 billion six-year deal with rival code the Australian Football League in August, News Corp co-chairman Rupert Murdoch hit out at the NRL, saying: “We’ve always preferred Aussie Rules and we’ve always believed this is the premium code in Australia”.
Australian Rugby League Commission chairman John Grant said the package was a win for all the game’s stakeholders and especially its fans.
However, tensions seem to have eased with News Corp chief executive Peter Tonagh declaring: “We love the NRL; we love both our children equally”. In revisiting the number of free to air games in this agreement, we were responding to the value both Nine and News Corp Australia saw in the Saturday game. Such an outcome would have been a disaster for Fox Sports as the NRL is the main subscription driver for Foxtel.
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Channel Nine rugby league reporter Danny Weidler reports the deal will include a “Telstra component (digital rights) with naming rights… and the majority of changes that were to start in 2018 will be brought forward”.
