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Seven signs Rugby League World Cup

Seven has secured the Rugby League World Cup 2013, to be staged in Europe in October and November.

2013-06-24_0029Seven has secured the Rugby League World Cup 2013, to air in October and November.

Seven will broadcast all RLWC2013 matches  live on 7mate as part of an all-encompassing agreement covering broadcast and subscription television rights, IPTV, interconnected TV, catch-up TV, HbbTV, pay per view, video on demand and digital rights, including online and mobile.

RLWC2013 will be hosted by England and Wales with matches also to be held in France and Ireland. The fourteen competing teams are Australia, England, New Zealand, Samoa, Wales, Fiji, France, Papua New Guinea, Ireland, Scotland, Tonga, Cook Islands, and for the first time, Italy and the United States.

Coverage will be produced by the BBC and Premier Sport as host broadcasters as well as by IMG Media, with overlay from Seven Sport under the direction of Seven’s Head of Sport, Saul Shtein.

Tim Worner, CEO of Seven West Media, said: “Seven is delighted to have secured this agreement that will see us as the home of rugby league and the Rugby League World Cup 2013 across October and November.

“It is an extraordinary event and fits perfectly with our portfolio of major sports event that we can drive across our broadcast television platform and our emerging and developing online and mobile content platforms. A key to this agreement is our ability to deliver this amazing event across multiple platforms in formats that meet the demands of our audiences. This approach is a cornerstone for our future development as a broad-based audience company.

“Live events define our business and we are delighted that rugby league will be on Seven’s broadcast platform. We are investing in and building our three channels and 7mate is key to our development, in particular its increasing presence in live sports television and extending its leadership in key male demographics.

“It is also fitting that we are entrusted with the Rugby League World Cup 2013 – it is 50 years this year since the late, great Rex Mossop joined Seven after an extraordinary playing career in league and union, and through his commentary and passion, defined league television coverage in Australia.”

RLWC2013 runs from October 26th- November 30th.

16 Responses

  1. Seven has all exclusive rights, Which means that it lesses the need to get Foxtel, All Live & Exclusive on Seven, FTA. As a sources say Seven will broadcast in NZ and The Pacific trading as Seven Network International.

  2. @Armchair Analyst – You might like to re-read my earlier post.
    I’m fully aware of Nine’s financial woes, I was just making a laboured analogy about Nine’s continuing mistreatment of League in Melbourne.

  3. For those of you who are wondering why Nine didnt retain this. Well the answer is simple. The Nine Network is in trouble. The Hedge funds were reluctant to spend the money on the Cricket Internationals now this is no surprise, anyone who has been following the Nine debt situation will know exactly why they “let this slip”.

  4. What NZ will watch EPL live for $150 a season plus broadband costs and you have to watch it on a tablet, 15 inch screen or smart phone, yeh sounds real inviting to subscribe to.

  5. It seems odd that Nine have let this event slip through their fingers to 7.
    As a resident of Melbourne I thought that it was in Nine’s programming remit to broadcast League in the early hours of the morning; a tournament held in the UK should have been ideal for them…

  6. @ ticky. It says that overlays which i presume will be the likes of titles and graphics will be used. That means 7 Sport grafics and logo will be used. This a good get. Although i am concerned as to how 7 managed to afford this considering they to have a substantial amount of debt to content with. The only difference is that 7 is in better shape ratings wise and content wise, and had a great year last year and the year before, meanwhile 9 was rebuilding and now it seems to have stalled. The IPTV rights part of it is ausome. David do you know if Perform Media is providing it through its livesport.tv website or is it another company. Perform provides Live online coverage of the NBL and ANZ Championship (only for non australian and NZ residents). The future is IPTV FOX’s days are numbered.

  7. Well, FTA is at last grapsing the opportunites as provided by multichannles. If the likes of Seven keep gobbling up more live sport, the need for people to get Foxtel will diminish. And more so as more sports start to sign up on-line only deals like the one announced in New Zealand last week where all EPL matches will only be seen on-line with one weekly match back on FTA. Thereby totally shutting out Sky Sports pay tv. Am sure the likes of the AFL and NRL will most likely go the same way and shut out pay tv next time when contracts come up for renewal. This country never really needed pay tv in the first place, just more FTA channels. There has never been the population base here to support pay tv. No wonder Murdoch does not believe in the NBN through his coverage in News Ltd newspapers.

  8. This is great news for rugby league as it is what fans have been asking for – all games live and in HD (obviously Nine are still to grasp the concept). But I can see FOX Sports being pissed as the 2 record breaking Foxtel broadcasts were Rugby Union World Cup and it has a smaller audience than League so it’s ratings could possibly have beaten it. But nevertheless great news.

  9. As long as they take the BBC feed and don’t add in any of their own elements (commentators, graphics, etc), this should actually be watchable, unlike most Seven Sport productions.

  10. Nine are the home of rugby league yet they couldn’t secure the World Cup? That is a laugh. This is a good get for Seven and a perfectly good use of multi-channels again. In saying this, it is in England so the timezone problems will probably be an issue anyway and maybe why Nine opted not to go for it. Still with The View and DOOL this is becoming some sort of a trend for Nine. Cutting programming for 2 sports.

  11. Good news. Hopefully will be taking and broadcasting a HD feed rather than the trash 7 dish up for the AFL and nine dishes up in Sydney for NRL.

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