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Report: FOX Sports faced with Nine ads in NRL deal

Should FOX Sports opt to simulcast Nine's 4 games, it may also have to take their advertising.

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The magnitude of Nine’s pre-emptive NRL deal may just be dawning, with a media report today suggesting should FOX Sports opt to simulcast their 4 games, it would also have to take Nine’s advertising.

The Australian Financial Review says the deal means FOX could not offer ad-free coverage of the games, which would have been a potential point of differentiation. And if it wanted to sell its own advertising during the coverage, there would be more ads on the Pay TV broadcast than on free-to-air television.

However, FOX could embed its own advertising into the live action, and it will likely pick up the other four games exclusively.

News Corp says talks between FOX Sports and the NRL about TV rights are “far from over”.

The report also says Nine was keen for TEN to be part of any joint bid with Nine, before it was decided to split the Pay TV and free-to-air rights.

  • Tagged with NRL

13 Responses

  1. What Foxtel has to weigh up is how many people will dump it if it ignores Rugby League I know I will dump the sports package no NRL bye Foxtel

  2. Why would Fox Sports offer big money to the NRL for Pay TV Rights now? Where else can the NRL get huge cash from a Pay TV Network? ESPN or Benin Sports? Not Likely. Maybe Fox Sports should just offer $1per NRL season!!!!

    1. Perhaps you haven’t noticed the number of people who have said that they want to pay for just the sports package or how Foxtel’s penetration is much higher in QLD and NSW than the traditional non-NRL states?

      I’m fairly confident that the people in charge of the bag of cash at Foxtel have a pretty good grasp of the market that they’re in.

  3. Fox Sports’ response was they would just take the other games live, and offer a fraction of what they are currently playing. There’s no point in simulcasting the games, especially while they carry Nine on the cable network.

    FTA is where sporting events that draw a large percentage of the population will end up. The exception is European soccer where there are enough people to pay a fortune that the exclusive rights end up on Pay TV, and the big teams own their own channels for their games and shows.

    How important streaming sport will become is to be determined.

  5. I have read something totally different that Ten might get a match from Nine which is Saturday night if the word is correct as David Gyngell is set to meet Ten new CEO Paul Anderson next week

  9. Bloody nora. It is bad enough that Nine retained the FTA rights, but now to know that if FOX Sports do pull of the ‘all games live’ deal it would come at the cost of having ads included thanks to Nine is just ridiculous. It is no wonder that the NRL always lags behind the AFL in this country given the NRL don’t know how to do what is best for the viewers, not to mention for themselves.

  10. Given that Fox Sports is a national channel, and Nine have different adverts for the different markets, how is that going to work? I’d still watch it on Fox Sports, because it is in HD, something Nine denies its NSW and Qld viewers.

    1. I rarely watch nine theses days but from memory the ads during NRL are national companies like Holden or Toyota or Bunnings or disgusting kfc so can’t see this being a practical issue.

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