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Report: $1.7B NRL deal for every game Live

FOX Sports could broadcast every game Live, with 3 on Free to Air, a report suggests.

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Every game of NRL could be shown Live on television in the next broadcasting rights deal, according to a speculative media article.

News Corp suggests a $1.7 billion deal could see FOX Sports broadcast every game Live, with 3 on Free to Air.

Only one match would be held on Friday night, with three on both Saturday and Sunday and a new Thursday night football fixture.

State of Origin would remain on free-to-air.

The $1.7 billion deal would be a 70 per cent increase on their current $1billion deal.

All three commercial FTA networks are bidding for the rights.

Previous speculation had suggested NRL could be staged games five nights a week.

20 Responses

  1. Have never understood why NRL airs the way it does – all but one game live. Why is it that Nine doesn’t air a game on Saturday night and have the other Friday night game on Foxtel live? Am sick of being able to watch every game live on either Nine or Fox except for one on Friday night – where in some cases one of my teams I follow end up being the delayed game so I have to avoid accidentally hearing or seeing the result before it airs.

    The other problem with NRL on Nine is not being in HD – hopefully by 2018 that is sorted (like it was in 2008!) as the HD games on Foxtel look 100 times better than live (or not live) and blurry on Nine.

    A deal like AFL – where you can see every game live on and in HD (most seem to be HD now – some of the Seven produced games weren’t before) would be ideal. Only people without Fox sports need to watch on FTA then.

  2. So not much is going to change then except for the fact Foxtel gets everything? Sounds like a great deal for PayTV but a dud deal for FTA. 3 games on FTA basically means nothing has changed. That is what we get now. The AFL deal is better than this.

    The fact Nine will still be involved is a bad thing for the sport. IMO they have driven it into the ground. They need fresh blood from someone like TEN. That’s who i’d like to see have the FTA rights. For those saying TEN having one game a week is good, really? One game? You need more than that if you ask me.

  3. I hope 7 wins the next rights to broadcast NRL. Seven has never broadcasted NRL in its 59-year history. This will then pull big ratings for Sunday News for Sydney and Brisbane.

    1. Wrong Shoudy. Channel 7 had Seven’s Big League as a delayed telecast in the late 1970s through to the late 1980s (in Sydney/NSW) with commentary by the late Rex ‘the Moose’ Mossop and his bullied sidekick Barry Ross.

    2. 59 years……. Maybe there is a reason for that. If they haven’t shown interest in the past why should they be involved in the future? As much as everyone seems to complain and whinge about Nine (and Foxtel for that matter) they have built the game into what it is today. Yes the lack of HD and the low number of games on FTA sucks, but money talks and Foxtel obviously had a lot more money to throw into the deal so they got the largest amount of games.

  4. I hope Ten get at least a game. A free-to-air game on Saturday night would be good considering the only other sport on FTA that night is AFL.

    1. That was rumoured. Under this deal, I imagine the FTA games are the Friday night game and either 2 on Sun or Sun/Thu. Not sure why Fox would pay the bulk of the rights to have half the games exclusively.

        1. Completely missed my point. I’m suggesting Foxtel aren’t paying the bulk of the rights fee to only have 4 exclusive games. Don’t see what Foxtel owning 14.9% of Network Ten has to do with what the break-up of FTA rights are, Ten do need something to improve Saturday night ratings though. This and/or AFL would be very helpful.

          1. Yep completely misread it, should have paid more attention to the post you were replying to, was reading it as Foxtel buying it all up. I read the Fox Sports 4 bit as being the channel and that channel getting exclusive matches on it, my bad.

            So was reading it as Foxtel buying the lot and then on-selling matches to FTA to meet the requirements, could be a Fox Sports Production for Channel Ten on 3 matches (similar to how the F1 works between Ten and Foxtel).

    1. It won’t go to Pay TV only due to Anti-Siphoning. And it will go to the network who pays the most. 9 will dig deep to keep it.

      It would be great if all games are also live on Fox Sports. HD and no commercial breaks. That’s what you pay a subscription for.

      1. It also won’t all go to pay TV because the NRL want 3 games a week on FTA to maintain the sports high profile (they have been pushing for years for Nine to show more matches live).

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