Nine wins $315m rights to Olympics

Nine Entertainment has secured exclusive broadcast rights to the Summer and Winter Olympics for the next decade, including the 2032 Games.

Nine Entertainment chief executive Mike Sneesby.

Nine Entertainment has secured exclusive broadcast rights to the Summer and Winter Olympics for the next decade, including the 2032 Games.

The media company on Wednesday announced a deal to pay the International Olympic Committee $315m for the rights to the 2024 Paris Games, the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and the 2032 event in Brisbane. It also won the rights to the 2026 and 2030 Winter Games.

The Games will be shown on all of Nine’s platforms, including its main free-to-air channel, its digital channels, and subscription service Stan – although a Nine spokesperson said Olympic content would not be “exclusively locked behind a paywall”.

Nine won the rights to the global event when longtime host broadcaster Seven withdrew from negotiations having lost tens of millions of dollars on the Tokyo, Rio and London Games.

On paper, the Olympics are almost always loss-making enterprises for broadcasters but deliver significant prestige, and promotional opportunities for a network’s other programs.

Nine boss Mike Sneesby said: “These rights complement our recently renewed partnerships with the NRL and Tennis Australia at a time when live sport continues to demonstrate its ability to drive strong growth in streaming audiences and strength in free-to-air TV consumption.”