English Premier League to air on Stan, ending Optus’ sports foray

A new deal to show the English Premier League and FA Cup on Stan Sport undoes several years of streaming fragmentation for fans of the world game.

Bringing the two marquee competitions onto the same platform as the UEFA Champions League means the monthly financial outlay will be halved for fans of some of the biggest teams in the world, including Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool.

Stan Sport announced a deal on Monday, ending Optus’ nine-year association with the Premier League, with all 380 matches set to stream live and on-demand on the Nine-owned platform.

English Premier League fans will be moving to Stan Sport for the coming season.Credit: AP

The deal means fans will need one service to watch most matches. The Stan Sport package will cost $15 a month on top of a $12-a-month basic Stan subscription. Stan will offer a discount for Stan Sport to Optus Sport customers who stay as Optus telco customers, a statement said.

One year ago, the Premier League (Optus Sport), FA Cup (Paramount+) and Champions League (Stan Sport) were spread across three platforms, costing close to $60 a month to subscribe to all three.

Nine, through Stan, will pay Optus an upfront fee of $20 million and make an upfront contribution to the next $100 million instalment of the sports rights fees to the EPL, Nine Entertainment told the ASX on Monday. Optus will then make periodic payments to Nine for the rest of the rights deal to subsidise the streaming service’s fees to the sports body.

Optus’ deal with the EPL, worth $600 million across six years, has three years to run. Last week, The Australian Financial Review reported that Optus would subsidise $40 million of the annual $100 million outlay for the soccer rights.

More than half of Optus Sport’s estimated 700,000 subscribers are not signed up to Stan Sport, Nine determined through due diligence.

The new acquisitions position Nine as a destination for football. The media company already holds the rights to broadcast the UEFA Champions League, as well as all four tennis grand slam events and most rugby union action.

Optus Sport subscriber numbers have fallen since it lost the Champions League rights to Stan in 2021. Sports rights expert and consultant Jon Marquard said Optus had been at its best when it offered a diverse selection of international competitions alongside its weekly Premier League coverage.

“Stan will be able to market a much more compelling set of rights, on a similar basis, given it already holds the Champions League and Europa League,” he said.

The deal marks an end to Optus’ sports venture, with as many as 100 jobs uncertain as Nine is expected to draw on its own staff to produce the Premier League’s additional coverage.

The Premier League, despite being an international league with few prominent Australians and airing overnight, is one of Australia’s most popular sports codes.

A survey of 3000 Australians by firm Tracksuit recently found it was the third most popular sports league across the country behind the AFL and NRL. In Victoria, the Premier League and NBA came in equal second, behind the AFL but ahead of the NRL.

Stan has 2.3 million paying subscribers, and while the number of those with the Stan Sport package is unknown, it is believed to be marginal compared with Optus Sport’s.

A shortcoming of the Stan Sport package has been the lack of consistent content, with the Champions League running sporadically throughout the year, grand slam tennis only in four two-week blocks, and the Olympic Games on only every two years over the winter or summer.

Craig Foster (left) and Mark Bosnich (centre) front Stan Sport’s Champions League coverage.Credit: Jesse Marlow

The Premier League runs consistently for most of the year from August through until May, with matches stretched across the weekends and mid-week.

If Nine’s estimate is correct – that more than half of Optus Sport’s customers do not have a Stan subscription – the deal could translate into some 350,000 new customers for Nine.

Nine owns this masthead.

With the rights for the Formula One still in the market and the looming NRL rights negotiations, the deal also bolsters Stan Sport’s position in future negotiations.

“This marks a step change in Nine’s digital growth strategy,” said Matt Stanton, Nine’s chief executive.

“The Premier League is the most-watched football league on the planet, and alongside the Emirates FA Cup, this acquisition reinforces Nine’s position as the home of sport in Australia.”

Optus CEO Stephen Rue said the company placed a priority on finding its assets a home that would take its football coverage, and Stan fit the bill.

“Optus Sport customers and the game of football will be in great hands at Stan, and we know the game will receive the broadcasting priority it deserves from an organisation whose speciality is delivering quality sports programming to its customers,” Rue said.

The deal also includes the rights to the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 championship, which starts this week on July 3, as well as the Japanese J-League and the National Women’s Soccer League in the United States.

Nine expects the sports rights acquisition to increase Stan’s earnings and cash flow for the remainder of the media rights deal, it said in its statement to the ASX.

In 2024, the Premier League announced that all production for international content and production would move in-house from the 2026/27 season.

Locally, Stan is yet to decide on the extent of its local production for the Premier League, which could include add-ons such as local football talk shows. Discussions were likely to take place this week, a source not authorised to speak publicly said.

On Stan Sport, former Socceroo Craig Foster, Australian former Manchester United goalkeeper Mark Bosnich and sports journalist Adam Peacock front Champions League broadcasts.

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