Rugby misses chance for a reset by taking Nine deal

Only time will tell if Channel 9 is the answer to many of rugby’s perpetual problems.

Rugby audiences have dived over the past 15 years Picture: Getty Images

Only time will tell if Channel 9 is the answer to many of rugby’s perpetual problems, including a dramatic fall in interest for the game they play in heaven.

On Monday morning, Rugby Australia confirmed it had made the shift to Nine Entertainment — a three-year deal worth $100m that will see all Test matches and one Super Rugby game aired on free-to-air TV each week while the company’s paywall-protected movies-and-drama streaming service Stan will show the rest.

Nine outbid the Foxtel/Ten bid, not by cash but by propping up their cash component with significant contra support in advertising and promotion via their media assets and mastheads. But will it make a difference to the ailing code?

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The brutal statistics show a breathtaking dive in interest for the sport; in 2003 Foxtel had half as many subscribers to its service but four times as many rugby viewers tuning in.

In 2011 a record 511,000 tuned in to the Super Rugby final on Fox Sports. This year’s round one Super Rugby opener between the Waratahs and Reds attracted 69,000. In 2001 a combined viewership of 1.8 million watched the British Lions play the Wallabies — while the spirited draw between the All Blacks and Australia two weeks ago attracted 500,000 viewers.

The key reason Rugby Australia say they have made the change from Foxtel to Nine is “reach”.

The Wallabies are already on free-to-air, so rebuilding a struggling Super Rugby competition is central to RA’s crucial ambition of reaching more people.

So, are fans ready to return to Super Rugby on Nine in their droves? Can Nine gets Super Rugby’s heart beating again?

There’s a question whether fans will buy into the new Super Rugby era which is very different to what it once was — next year’s competition will just involve Australian and New Zealand teams but the shape of the tournament is yet to be decided.

And there is growing speculation that Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s Western Force isn’t completely committed to the next Super Rugby season.

To truly “reach” and grow the code, it would require the Super Rugby game of the week (usually a Waratahs or Reds game) to be on Nine’s main broadcast channel and not behind the paywall on Stan or on secondary FTA channel Gem.

Time will tell whether the network is prepared to do this. Rugby league is very obviously Nine’s premier football code. Their NRL commentators will be asked to plug Saturday night Super Rugby and Wallabies matches during rugby league games on Friday nights. So it seems more than likely Super Rugby will be sidelined on Gem.

As one television insider noted, a rerun of Die Hard 4 will make more money on a multi-channel than a Super Rugby match which is more likely to be “a tax” than a financial success for a network.

The soon to be launched Stan Sports is an unproven concept. It is a drama-and-movies streaming service with no sports subscribers, a different audience profile and no ability to cross-promote the game to other sports fans. The challenge is huge.

It is worth noting club rugby is now behind the Stan Sports paywall, while Foxtel sources say they would have offered that content for free.

Viewership for sport on traditional free-to-air channels is in decline as the networks shift programming to reality and renovation shows. The audience for the Bledisloe Cup on Ten is down 10 per cent on average each year since 2015. The Rugby Championship is down 15 per cent annually.

Some are now asking; did Rugby Australia miss its reset moment?

The Australian has learnt of a Foxtel proposal, first tabled to then RA chief Raelene Castle in September 2018, which consisted of a 20-team, two division club competition designed to also reboot rugby’s grassroots. It is what the game needed — a radical restart.