Brisbane 2032 Olympics to air on Nine as part of multimillion-dollar deal

Media giant Nine Entertainment Co will become the exclusive broadcaster of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games under a multimillion-dollar deal with the International Olympic Committee that will run for the next decade.

The company will also broadcast the Paris 2024 Olympics and Los Angeles 2028 Olympics across its television, radio and digital assets as part of the $315 million deal, which it confirmed to the ASX late on Wednesday.

Nine chief executive Mike Sneesby said he was confident the amount of money being paid was worth the investment, adding it was unfair to compare the previous deal struck between rival network Seven and the IOC.

Nine’s executive team celebrate the Olympic Games announcement (L-R): Director of television Michael Healy, managing director of Nine radio Tom Malone, general counsel Rachel Launders, CEO Mike Sneesby, head of strategy Matt Stanton and managing director of publishing James Chessell.Credit: Wolter Peeters

“You can’t compare directly one deal to the next because each of the Olympic Games is different, each of the Winter Games is different from location to time zone,” Sneesby said. “What we’ll see as a television event for the Games in 2032 will be completely unprecedented in media in Australia.”

“We feel very satisfied with the outcome,” he said.

Nine chairman Peter Costello said the deal reflected the company’s long-term strategy to offer content across all platforms. Nine owns The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times and WAtoday.

“I am delighted that Nine will be showing the Olympic Games across the Nine Network, 9Now and Stan from Paris 2024 through to the culmination in Brisbane in 2032,” Costello said.

The deal includes the Winter Games and runs until 2032, ending a longstanding relationship between rival broadcaster Seven West Media and the IOC.

Nine will pay $305 million in cash and $10 million in contra under the eight-year deal, which also includes the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics and the 2030 Winter Olympics. It includes the rights to all content, allowing Nine to broadcast footage across its radio stations including 2GB and 3AW, television network, publishing assets and streaming service Stan.

Executives at Nine struck the deal almost a year after talks began. Sneesby flew to Switzerland last April with Today Show host Karl Stefanovic as part of the pitch. The company also hosted key executives from the IOC in November and were informed in late December their bid was successful.

Sneesby said the company had not decided if it would air any content through its paywalled streaming service Stan, but confirmed they were considering other Olympics related content, such as documentaries. He said the finer details of the coverage, including how many journalists to send to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, had not been decided. He added that keeping major sporting events - such as the swimming and athletics - free to the public remains a key priority for him.

“Nine has the breadth of platforms to be able to distribute this, unlike any other media business in the country,” he said. “The opportunity for us across all of our platforms... means that we have a great opportunity to distribute the games and bring them to Australians in more ways than ever before.”

Nine has secured the rights to the next three Olympic Games.Credit: AP/Lewis Joly

“We are committed to ensuring that Australians everywhere continue to get live and free access to the Olympic Games. That won’t change under the model that we would look at.”

The bid, revealed by this masthead in December, was significantly higher than Seven’s offer. Seven, which owns television and publishing assets, made its offer for the next round of rights in August 2021. Sources said the dollar figure offered was between $230 and $250 million. Seven told staff last year that it had pulled out of the race because the economics of a deal did not stack up.

Seven and Nine were joint broadcasters of the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, which was the first to be televised in Australia. Since then, Seven has been the preeminent broadcaster, televising events in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

The network briefly lost the rights from 2010 to 2014 to rival broadcasters Nine, Network Ten (now owned by Paramount) and Foxtel before signing a deal from 2016 to 2020.

Olympic Games are usually a loss-making event for a television network, but the event is used as a springboard to promote other key programs on a television network. In 2017, Seven wrote down the value of the games by $70 million (the original deal was reported to be worth $200 million). And, despite it breaking audience records in 2021, the Tokyo 2020 Games still led to a $50 million loss for the network, with production costs coming in at about $150 million.

Seven has previously written down the value of Olympics broadcast rights a number of times, after spending almost $200 million in 2014 to secure the rights to the 2016 Rio Games, the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Asked about whether a similar scenario would occur again, Sneesby said he felt good about the business plan and modelling.

“I’ve always said very clearly that we have a disciplined approach to how we invest in sport,” he said. “You’ve seen that Nine has been prepared on a number of occasions to walk away from negotiations, where the price has exceeded what, we think, is the threshold. Quite clearly [the Games] is within our envelope. I wouldn’t compare this deal with any other deal, with other network.”

Barrenjoey analyst Eric Choi said in a note that there is “potential” for Nine to breakeven. “We flag that recent Olympics have been loss-making, although these rights may still have the potential to wash their face,” he said. “To make a return on advertising revenues alone...each event would need to deliver around 1.5 points of share for NEC to ‘breakeven’. However, we remind NEC also gets the pay rights, potentially utilised via Stan.”

The new IOC deal does not include the Paralympics, which is sold in a separate rights package that is yet to be negotiated.

Nine shares closed at $2.20 on Wednesday.

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