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Just moments after Tuesday’s press conference to confirm the NRL’s broadcast deal wound up at the sport’s Moore Park base, Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany jumped into a car to take him to Sydney Airport.
Delany tried several times over the past few weeks to get to Europe, where his family are holidaying. But the rights negotiations had dragged on. Finally, at 12.30pm sharp on Tuesday, the leaders of two major media companies and the NRL sat down to announce the deal was done.
The NRL’s record-breaking, seven-year $5.3 billion agreement with Foxtel and Nine Entertainment, the owner of this masthead, was finalised after months of back and forth, often-tense talks that went right down to the wire.
Contract terms were still being thrashed out late on Monday night, and it was only just before Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys fronted the cameras with Delany, Nine chief Matt Stanton and outgoing NRL CEO Andrew Abdo that documents were printed and signed upstairs inside the boardroom at the code’s headquarters.
“We haven’t got here easily. [There has] certainly been some very robust meetings, to say the least. So much so that I’ve been in the head assessment bin a few times and nearly out for 11 days, but I came back early, with a doctor’s certificate,” said V’landys, jokingly referring to the NRL’s concussion protocols to demonstrate his point.
The bumper deal, which begins in 2028, incorporates a likely expansion of the NRL to 20 teams by 2029, delivering an additional two games per round to the competition. It includes the NRLW. And it could ultimately raise the NRL’s salary cap from $12 million per team to as high as $20 million, meaning substantial pay rises for players.
It will put the NRL ahead of the AFL as holders of the richest sports broadcast deal windfall in Australian history, a personal ambition of V’landys.
The powerful administrator reinforced his reputation as a tough negotiator during the drawn-out process, in which long-time incumbents Foxtel and Nine both bid for the full set of rights and a new player, Amazon Prime Video, threw its hat in the ring.
The battle for the rights consumed the contenders, as well as V’landys and Abdo, as it neared the finish line.
At the Artarmon offices of Foxtel, owned by global streamer DAZN, a war room had been set up on the fifth floor and executives and lawyers had done several all-nights in recent weeks, locating couches to sleep on in areas of the building with the least amount of light.
There was similar burning of the midnight oil at Nine, where heavy lifting was led by head of streaming and broadcast Amanda Laing, a former member of the ARL Commission, while Stanton and chairman Peter Tonagh were key figures in discussions with the league.
While Delany might have been trying to get to Europe, Nine executives had plenty on their minds, including managing the departure of Today presenter Karl Stefanovic.
V’landys said the presence of Amazon, which was seeking games on Fridays, changed the course of the negotiations, driving competitive tension but sticking with the existing broadcasters was “best for the game and … best for the fans”. Amazon was contacted for comment.
The deal – in which Foxtel will pay about $520 million a year and Nine about $150 million annually – was 90 per cent about money, according to V’landys.
But he admitted there were other terms that the NRL wanted that “we drove very hard”.
They included taking over the NRL draw, which was traditionally put together by the broadcasters, who chose which matches they wanted every week.
Over the past decade, the schedule has become more of a collaborative effort between the NRL and the media companies who air the games. The NRL will assume full control.
There are also clauses in the deal about how the NRL is covered by Foxtel and Nine.
“There are certain obligations in the agreements in a partnership way and we make no apology on that because we want to portray the game in the most positive fashion to attract a new audience, and both our partners are going to do that,” V’landys said.
Another major development during the talks was an attempt by Foxtel to obtain simulcast rights for the sport’s showpiece occasions: the State of Origin series and the NRL grand final.
They are regularly the most-watched events on Australian television, with the interstate clashes drawing audiences of more than 4 million on Nine.
Federal anti-siphoning laws require State of Origin and the grand final to be shown free-to-air, but Foxtel was eager for a piece of the action as well.
That would have been a deal-breaker for Nine, which insisted on keeping the marquee matches exclusively as well as three NRL games per round.
“Look, Fox [and its owners] DAZN naturally wanted to have the State of Origin and the grand final,” V’landys said.
“The way it worked out is we wanted it exclusively on Nine to provide Nine with that exclusive content, and that was part of the commercial negotiation,” he said. “We try to get the right balance, and we believe we’ve got the right balance.”
Foxtel will show every other game and have six and eventually seven games to itself when a 20th team is added to the NRL, following on from the Perth Bears in 2027 and the Australian government-backed PNG Chiefs in 2028.
The subscription company is paying big time for the privilege, with its annual outlay to almost double from its current arrangement, while Nine’s fee will rise marginally for its package, which remains the same.
Asked how Foxtel would afford it without jacking up the costs to viewers, Delany said it was banking on volume driving up subscription numbers, maintaining the parties were “aligned on affordability”.
What exact mechanisms are in the agreement to safeguard the hip pockets of fans were not outlined but V’landys referenced his background to deliver them an assurance.
“I am a migrant kid from Wollongong. I never forgot my roots, and I ensured that the price point will be protected,” he said.
“It’s commercially sensitive, naturally. But all I know is DAZN is a brilliant partner. They are professional. They honour their word and this is no different.”
V’landys wants to put some of the funds from the rights deal away “for a rainy day” in a desire to build the game’s asset base from $400 million to $1 billion.
But his main aim is to grow the game internationally, and the more lucrative tie-up with Foxtel is at the cornerstone of that.
The NRL began taking season-opening matches in Las Vegas under his watch and is also exploring further overseas fixtures as part of a mooted global round he would like to launch as early as next year.
V’landys hopes to use the worldwide footprint of DAZN, which is owned by Ukrainian-born British-American billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik and has tens of millions of subscribers, to expand the popularity of the sport abroad.
Like former Super League supremo John Ribot’s dream during the 1990s to take the game to China, he is thinking big.
Ribot’s vision didn’t materialise, but V’landys is confident his will.
“We’ve got one and one only chance to globalise the game and we’re going to do it,” he said. “Who is to say that in 2050 there’s not a team in the NRL from Europe? That’s the aim.
“Why isn’t there one from America, with changes in transport, changes in technology? The world’s our oyster. You’ve got to look at all that.”
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