Time for NRL to play hardball with Nine over broadcast rights

Newcastle Knights players leave the field after winning their Round 2 match against Wests Tigers last month. Picture: Getty Images

It was as predictable as the Easter bunny arriving that the world woke on Sunday to a Gus Gould rant defending his employer, the Nine network.

“Nine’s attack was right on the money and the game needed to hear it,” said the Nine newspaper columnist defending his Nine television station under the banner of “Independent Always”.

How absurd. This from a man who annually wasted millions in his previous job as general manager of Penrith over a period in which the Panthers lost more money than any club in the game.

But back to Nine …

The whole catchcry of coronavirus, on its own TV network, is that “we’re in this together”.

Then to use the global health pandemic as a business practice to try to cripple a sporting organisation is just disgraceful. Nine will not get away with it.

It faces the most severe public relations backlash for trying to kick rugby league while it’s down and confronting its biggest crisis. This is a time when all sporting codes and businesses are bleeding.

The AFL is needing a $500m loan to survive but its major broadcast partner, the Seven Network, has been fully supportive. Many of Nine’s problems with rugby league have been self-inflicted anyway. Its poor coverage and negativity in recent years has led to a huge ratings decline. Its State of Origin broadcasts have lost millions of viewers.

At the same time Fox Sports’ ratings and Kayo subscriptions have increased. It shows the product is fine but the way in which it is broadcast is the problem. Not that anyone from the NRL tells Nine how to do its job.

We have said all along that this is a tactic by Nine boss Hugh Marks to try to get more for less. Next to Gould’s offerings was another column explaining how Nine now wants exclusive content … its own games and no more simulcasts with Fox Sports.

This would cost a fortune to buy the rights from the pay-TV network, which stumps up the majority of the broadcast deal. Yet Nine still demands a reduced contract. This threatens the survival of struggling Sydney clubs who have already lost their income stream from poker machines.

This also threatens the grassroots funding of the game. Less money to the NRL means less to the states. It’s time for the NRL to play hardball, not for Peter V’landys to apologise. For too long this network has screwed over the NRL with selfish scheduling demands.

We spoke last week of the old midnight replays of the second Friday night games and the delayed coverage of Sunday afternoon football with more ad breaks than tries scored.

In its statement last week, Nine complained of being left out of discussions of future scheduling. No mention of the fact Gould was in fact offered a position on the Project Apollo innovation committee.

(There is word Marks ordered him not to take up the offer.)

Also no mention of the fact NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg was actually spotted at Nine headquarters walking into a meeting with Marks to discuss the game’s various challenges.

This column is not about defending the NRL. There’s no denying the code has been poorly man­aged over a long period of time.

It’s about holding Nine to account. It cannot be allowed to treat the game, the fans, the players or the clubs in this manner. If Nine can’t support the code in these difficult times it should walk away. Let Seven or the Ten network come on board. The bosses of both networks have reached out to NRL powerbrokers in recent days to express their interest. Stay tuned.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH