Foxtel baulks at uncertainty over rugby schedule

There is continued uncertainty about what Rugby Australia is actually offering in its “showbag” of television rights.

Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany.

Continued uncertainty about what Rugby Australia is actually offering in its “showbag” of television rights appears to have caused Foxtel to baulk at submitting a formal expression of interest by the close of RA’s deadline on Friday.

That is not to say Foxtel will not make an offer — it has had extensive talks with RA officials about what next year and subsequent seasons will look like — but it is understood to be hedging on making a formal approach until it learns what RA is offering over the next five-year cycle.

RA is still awaiting final confirmation from New Zealand that it is prepared to accept five Australians teams in a 10 to 12-team trans-Tasman competition, but indications are that COVID-19 biosecurity precautions on both sides of the ditch will mean that both countries are almost certain to play purely domestic competitions next year.

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Sources have indicated that if and when Foxtel does get around to making a formal offer, the only part of its bid that will acknowledge rugby as a “tier one sport” will be the Wallabies Tests. Even if a trans-Tasman competition does go ahead with the major population centres of Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth all covered by Super Rugby franchises (which effectively delivers everything that Foxtel had wished for), the offer to be made by Foxtel will be considerably under the $US125m ($171m) five-year deal former RA chief executive Raelene Castle rejected in November.

Castle had hoped to trigger a bidding war on the open market, but it never eventuated, leaving rugby to rue her decision. Even had that deal been sealed, it is likely Foxtel would have wanted to renegotiate its offer to reflect the limited product rugby could have offered because of the pandemic. Still, RA’s position would have been far better than it is today.

In a speech to a sports conference on Tuesday, Foxtel boss ­Patrick Delany seemingly deliberately excluded rugby from his list of tier one sports, an oversight that Castle’s interim successor, Rob Clarke, did not take particularly seriously.

In Clarke’s mind, the global reach of rugby earned it “tier one” status, but seemingly only the international component of RA’s “showbag” is inducing any enthusiasm among broadcasters.

“As one of the largest global sports, I think rugby is a tier one sport,” Clarke told the Sydney Morning Herald. “I think Patrick was including rugby in his commentary.”

Apparently not.

Delany in his speech stressed that Foxtel was now “quite fearless” about losing a sport.

“In the past we have tried to have every sport we could get,” Delany said. “To be frank, there are too many sports in Australia with too big an expectation and too small a population.

“We are now quite fearless of losing a sport. If a sport is asking too much money and we can’t make it work, and someone else can, well good luck to them.

“We can see quite clearly the sports that are working and those sports know who they are. We did a great deal with the NRL to review our relationship. I want more of the NRL. Our relationship with the AFL is really fabulous. I want more AFL. The motorsports are going well for us, and we like cricket. But they are really the tier one sports and the rest are going to have to adjust.”

Rugby is in its last year of a golden $285m deal done by Castle’s predecessor, Bill Pulver, with Delany in 2015, when the two organisations were still on excellent speaking terms. Under the terms of RA’s negotiation with Foxtel for this year’s domestic Super Rugby AU, the final international instalment of that 2015 deal will be paid out as long as RA honours its commitment to stage not just the two Bledisloe Cup Tests against New Zealand in southeast Queensland on October 10 and 17 but also The Rugby Championship, which also involves world champion South Africa and Argentina.

All up, there are only eight internationals planned this year, well down on the customary 13 or 14 Tests. Already the inbound Tests, which this year featured Ireland in two internationals, have been cancelled and there is no sign that the traditional spring tour will go ahead in November.

RA’s entire budget customarily hinges on the broadcast deal, but that might not be the case this year, with CVC Capital Finance and Silver Lake both interested in injecting private equity into the southern hemisphere rugby equation, though with a marked preference for a trans-Tasman Super Rugby-style competition.