Nine retains rights for NRL in five year deal
The Nine Network has retained the free-to-air rights for the NRL for the 2018 to 2022 seasons in a deal worth $185m per year.
The network will broadcast four premium live games a week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons, as well as the Finals series, State-of-Origin, and other special event matches.
Nine has also acquired all free streaming rights for these games.
Had to listen to the doggies game on the radio on Friday as it was delayed in Sydney and not even available live through the NRL digital pass, delayed there too. Hopefully this deal brings a sport, that has been marred with the influence of TV money, up to scratch with modern broadcasting.
Concerning that there is no mention of HD smh.
Once again the real fans of the game, ie Season Ticket Holders with young kids have been screwed over by the NRL to give benefit to the (so called) fans who don’t spend a cent supporting their team and park their backsides on the lounge to “‘support” their teams by watching on TV.
MEMO: Dave Smith…..
Parents with young kids don’t want to go to Thursday night games with late kickoff times, especially when not one Channel 9 game has kicked off on time this season.
What a debacle. It looks like TEN or Seven never had a chance to start with. It would be great to see some transparency.
RL maybe be in nines DNA but they have been doing a shithouse job over the years treating there viewers like crap not showing games live on delay and putting games on only to suit them .NOT the fans or viewers and they still get the rights…one has to wonder what else is going on
Broadcasting in HD should have been a mandatory part of securing the deal.
Interesting to see that Gyng says their NRL streaming will be free. Wonder if that means they’ll make the Cricket Aus app free too? Can’t see many people paying for that this year…
Not a good result for the PAY-TV business model.
The UK is about to get the option for Ultra HD. Whilst I don’t anticipate miracles, I do hope the channel 9 goes all 2011 by 2018.