The NRL has sold its broadcast rights for $5.3 billion. Nine and Foxtel announced the seven-year agreement on Tuesday, a day before the State of Origin decider, and it is the biggest ever signed by an Australian sporting code.
It runs from 2028 to 2034 and is worth about $750 million a year. That puts it ahead of the AFL, whose record $4.5 billion deal, signed in 2022, covers seven years from 2025 to 2031. Beating the AFL has long been a goal of Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys.
“The deal future-proofs the game for everybody,” V’landys said at the announcement. He put the increase in cash at 90%. “95% is cash, 5% is contra. This compares to the previous deals, where the contra was 10%.” The Age put the overall rise at roughly 80%. The annual figure could reach almost $800 million with a 20th team, a tenth game each round and New Zealand television investment.
Negotiations ran late. “Up until late last night, and I mean, late last night, we were still negotiating terms of this agreement,” V’landys said.
Who gets what
Nine keeps three games a week on free-to-air television, plus exclusive rights to State of Origin and the grand final. Origin stays on Wednesday nights, and the draw goes back to the NRL, which had previously set it with the broadcasters.
Foxtel and its Kayo streaming app will show nine live games a round, six of them exclusively. Once the league reaches 20 teams, Foxtel will carry seven matches a week live and exclusive and simulcast the other three with Nine. The Age reported Foxtel is expected to pay around $520 million a year for the pay TV component, up from about $270 million under the current deal. Foxtel was bought last year by Sir Leonard Blavatnik’s DAZN.
Both Nine and Foxtel had bid separately for the full package, in effect to shut out the other, and other media companies were interested. Mediaweek reported Foxtel had proposed working with Seven and Network Ten to simulcast Origin and the grand final, and that Nine is understood to have offered extra money to keep both. Nine chief executive Matt Stanton said the free-to-air rights were the minimum his company wanted, and that missing out on the full package was no loss for its Stan streaming service. Nine’s shares rose 1.3% to 92 cents on Tuesday afternoon.
“It secures us for another seven years, which is a really good, significant period of time for us to base our business around,” Stanton said. Nine chair Peter Tonagh called rugby league “part of Nine’s DNA.”
Expansion and prices
The deal allows for a 20th team by the 2029-30 season, most likely based in New Zealand, though The Age named Christchurch or Brisbane’s south-west corridor. The Perth Bears join next year to make 18 clubs, and the PNG Chiefs enter in 2028.
Asked whether Kayo prices would climb, Foxtel Group chief executive Patrick Delany said its entry-level price has risen only once in nearly nine years. “It is very well priced, and our goals keep it affordable,” he said. V’landys said the NRL is “aligned on affordability” and promised to protect the price point: “I’m a migrant kid from Wollongong, I never forgot my roots.”
Chief executive Andrew Abdo, who is leaving to run Tennis Australia, called the deal a “massive win” for the league. V’landys said he and Abdo had “turned the game into a $5.3 billion empire” over five years, and that he still needed time to consider becoming executive chairman.
Sources
- What you need to know about the NRL’s blockbuster rights deal
- NRL seals record $5.3bn Nine, Foxtel rights deal
