It was the most electrifying moment in Australian sport last year. Rupert Murdoch, having spent the second half of the 1990s in the Super League battle for rugby league television rights, signed a record $2.5 billion deal to secure pay television rights to the Australian Football League for the next six years.
“We’ve always preferred Aussie rules and we’ve always believed this is the premium code in Australia,” Murdoch said at the August news conference in Melbourne after the deal’s signing.
The AFL negotiation was in response to a shock exclusive $1.8bn rights agreement between former NRL chief executive Dave Smith and former Channel Nine chief David Gyngell, done without consulting the NRL’s other partners, Fox Sports and Telstra.
So here we are eight months later at the start of week one of league’s showpiece State of Origin series (which remains exclusive to free-to-air television) and Smith and Gyngell have both moved on. How did the league rights battle pan out?
Well, pretty damn well if you listen to ebullient Fox Sports CEO Patrick Delany and new Foxtel chief Peter Tonagh. They say audience share is way ahead of where it was last year. Delany points to ratings on Fox Sports’ five exclusive games each round being up 17 per cent year to date.
NRL ratings overall are up 6 per cent across all broadcasters so the code is happy too. Delany says the league rights have had a halo effect across all sports and while Tonagh is cautious, largely because of the effect on subscriptions of Telstra’s Foxtel bonus offer and the telco’s promotion of services bundled with Foxtel subscriptions, he is convinced sport is driving increased subscriptions across the Foxtel platform.
NRL is a prime driver but Tonagh and Delany had to move fast to regroup after they were ambushed by Optus at the start of the year on English Premier League soccer rights. They engineered an alternative, and perhaps better, European soccer strategy. They secured access to EPL channels based on the official TV feeds of Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United and the new beIN Sports 1, 2, 3 channels showing all 51 games in UEFA Euro 2016 live and in HD.
January’s Fox Sporting Nation marketing campaign with the new NRL and soccer coverage are floating all sports ratings boats and AFL, Supercars, Super Rugby and European football are all up.
Delany started in his present role in 2011 and while he has enjoyed success in creating new programs, this is the first year in which actual live sports ratings have risen sharply.
“Undoubtedly this deal has been terrific for us,” a clearly enthusiastic Tonagh said last week from Los Angeles. “We have a very simple marketing message now. All games live. It is much more compelling than trying to explain which games we do have.” He said the total NRL audience across all eight games each week was up 11 per cent.
So if the two News Corp affiliates are happy, can Nine have short-changed itself? Not according to Nine director of sport Tom Malone. It is not entirely clear how much Nine ended up paying for its three games a week, but it seems likely it was $650 million.
While the new deal was not to start formally until 2018, Nine has agreed to several early changes to secure arrangements. In return for a $20m annual payment, Nine is allowing Fox Sports to run all eight games a week live, effectively simulcasting the three Nine games. The game previously shown second on Nine on Friday nights has moved to live in prime time on Thursday night.
Malone does admit the deal to allow Foxtel to broadcast all eight games live, including the three Nine games, has taken about 8 per cent off Nine’s ratings year to date. But there are important trade-offs working in Nine’s favour.
“Fox Sports is paying us $20 million to run our games and is committed to run eight minutes of our ads on their schedule for each match they run. And there is a prime time spin-off for us with the new Thursday night game,’’ Malone said last week.
Nine sees a big advantage in the loss of the second Friday night game on free to air that used to run until after 11pm. Malone says ratings on the two night games are up 4 per cent compared with last year and there are extra advertising dollars in having two early night games. While the Fox Sports Sunday afternoon simulcast has affected ratings for Nine, important benefits remain in the free-to-air environment with that game as a lead-in to the 6pm news bulletin.
Delany believes Fox Sports has been able to unleash its creativity under the new NRL deal. He believes having its own commentators and being able to build a more modern stable of game hosts has been good for the network.
While he will not criticise Nine, he believes the Fox Sports coverage has a more modern feel than last year and the traditional free-to-air commentary team is starting to sound a bit old-fashioned.
Taking a lead from US National Football League coverage, he is investing heavily in graphics and statistics. “We are looking to develop more young current players as commentators. We want young, fit and articulate men who can bring the sizzle of the game to our coverage,” Delany said.
Much was made in the pre-season of the new-look Fox Sports commentary team and the fact no Nine voices would be heard on the pay coverage. Match calling was split between former Nine caller Andrew Voss and Warren Smith.
The head-to-head commentary match-ups between the Johns brothers, Andrew (Nine) and Matthew (Fox Sports), and between Nine’s Ray Hadley (of 2GB mornings fame) and Fox’s Voss were eagerly promoted. And while Nine has made much of the return of legendary caller Ray Warren, Fox Sports has created a whole new feel with commentary before and after games and at half time hosted by athletics Olympian Matt Shirvington and including youthful former NRL stars Braith Anasta, Mark Gasnier and Greg Alexander.
A marketer by choice, Delany is clear the offering for sports fans is hard to resist: “Whatever your sport, whatever you are into, you can get it now live and ad free.”
It is only the start of winter but at this point it has all panned out better than seemed likely that August Melbourne afternoon last year.
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