NRL broadcast rights: Nine and News in bid to break impasse

News Corp and Nine Entertainment will hold talks within weeks in a bid to break the impasse over the NRL rights.

News Corp and Nine Entertainment Company are expected to hold a closed-door meeting involving senior management within weeks as they seek to break the impasse on the National Rugby League’s sports broadcasting rights deal.

Despite suggestions News Corp’s subsidiary Fox Sports was close to clinching an agreement for the pay-TV rights with the NRL as soon as this week, the two sides remained a long way from signing a contract, sources said.

Under a proposed scenario, league fans would have ­access to two live Friday night games with Fox Sports broadcasting a 6pm Friday night game staged in Auckland, Brisbane or Townsville.

And free-to-air broadcaster Nine would televise an 8pm game on the same evening, helping to deliver the NRL a $1.85 billion payday.

The deal, which would hand Fox Sports five live games, is contingent on Nine surrendering its Saturday prime-time game to Fox for about $30 million a year, or $150m over five years.

Nine is said to be more than willing to offload the match to reduce hefty annual payments by $55m a year to $130m.

Nine could also raise an additional $25m by selling simulcast rights to Fox Sports.

Although sources at Nine claim newly installed chief executive Hugh Marks is under no immediate pressure to cut costs amid persistently soft conditions in the advertising market, the company is said to be keen to reduce its massive outlay on NRL matches. Asked by The Australian if he was open to doing a deal, Mr Marks said on Friday in his first round of media interviews: “I think, as we said at the time, we’re really happy with the rights that we’ve got, so at the moment that’s where we sit.”

Pressed on whether Nine needed to cut the costs of the contract signed in August, Mr Marks said: “Not if we’re happy with the deal we’ve got.

“I think we’re really happy with the value of that sport to our franchise ... and having the consistency of that Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday in your schedule, as I look forward into the future of TV — that’s incredibly valuable.”

One potential sticking point is the quality of the game that Nine would sell. The broadcaster secured the best four matches of the round and may not wish to lose the top picks.

Any move to hand the Saturday match back to Fox Sports, which holds the existing rights under the 2012-17 contract, needs Nine to sell the wholesale rights back to the NRL, which gave them away in the new contract.

It’s understood the NRL has not yet engaged Nine in talks, although the network has sent strong signals it wishes to go back to the drawing board.

Before resigning last week, former Nine chief David Gyngell held informal talks with News Corp, knowing that if its unit Fox Sports does not strike an agreement with the NRL that brings the price close to the $1.85 billion mark, Nine’s contract will start to come under close scrutiny from the clubs.

It’s the latest twist in a high- stakes sports broadcasting market more in keeping with the drama seen in off-season player trades. For the NRL, the deal was originally considered a good result but it alienated Fox and was later trumped by the AFL, which ­secured $2.5bn over six years.

The massive gap in value ­between AFL and NRL rights, as well as growing tension with News Corp, led to former NRL chief executive David Smith’s resignation last month.