NRL in Las Vegas expected to trigger a big month for Foxtel

Men’s and women’s rugby league players competing in Las Vegas is the proverbial starting whistle for a big month of Foxtel Group subscriptions, as last year proved.

Foxtel boss Patrick Delany and NRL360 host Braith Anasta. Picture: @mathewimaging

The relocation of NRL teams to Las Vegas for the league’s opening round for the second consecutive year wasn’t just a marketing windfall for the sport’s governing body.

Patrick Delany, chief executive of the Foxtel Group, explained to The Australian from Las Vegas what the initial 2024 initiative meant to the subscription TV platform.

“This round last year saw the biggest sales, the biggest returning sales, and the highest rating weekend we’d ever had,” he said.

And the expectation is that Sunday’s coverage will have eclipsed the markers set in 2024.

The Foxtel Group has rights to every regular season NRL and AFL match.

As incoming owner DAZN works toward closing its $3.4bn takeover deal, the NRL season launch segues into an AFL start just days later.

The 2025 AFL season marks the first time Foxtel can market Saturday exclusivity for viewers of Fox Footy. It had an inkling of what that would mean for subscriptions as it had every NRL game live on Saturdays for the past decade, Me Delany said.

March also marks a milestone for the Foxtel streaming platform Binge.

There’s been speculation that the loss of HBO and other Warner Bros Discovery content to new arrival Max means Binge’s days are numbered.

Not so, said Mr Delany, who pointed to the launch of NRL and AFL matches live on Binge for no additional fee.

“What happened with Warner Bros Discovery is not unprecedented. Something similar happened to Stan when Paramount and Showtime pulled out and it wasn’t the end of Stan,” he said.

“Binge’s proposition has changed. It’s got premium drama, great movies, every bit of lifestyle and reality. So now we also have live sport.”

Foxtel Group is planning more bundling offers between Binge and sports streaming platform Kayo to make having both more attractive.

And in other Foxtel news, the sports and entertainment streaming platform announced on Sunday that it had secured exclusive Australian broadcast rights to the world’s most prestigious golf tournament, the US Masters.

This marks the first time that all four major golf tournaments — the Masters, US Open, The Open Championship and the PGA Championship — will be broadcast live and exclusive on Fox Sports, available on Foxtel and Kayo Sports. The 2025 US Masters week begins on April 7.