Shayne Currie: NZ Herald Media Insider author on Sky TV securing NRL broadcasting rights for next seven years

Sky TV is inking a deal with the NRL. 

They’ve locked in exclusive broadcast rights for the next seven years, the deal running from 2028 to 2034. 

It’ll broadcast on their Sky Sport paid platform, with free to air options rumoured to come. 

NZ Herald Media Insider’s Shayne Currie told Ryan Bridge that Sky has essentially claimed the top three sports for at least the next five years – NRL, rugby, and cricket. 

He says these lengthy deals for the really fan-engaging sports are going to leave TVNZ scrambling to pick up whatever it can for its fledgling digital subscription model. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Wars and NRL staying on Sky TV here in
New Zealand. Seven year deal Sky Sports, Sky Sport now
free to air options to come. Rumored sixty million dollars
a year. Big deal across the Tasman too. Shane Curry,
the Herald's media inside with us this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Shane, Good morning, morning Ryan. Very important for Sky to
keep this right, oh hugely. I mean what they've done
essentially now is wrapped up the top three sports for
at least five years. So you know, this new NRL deal,
one of the biggest attractions for Saphie Maloney and the
Sky team was the length of it seven years. Normally

(00:34):
these deals are kind of sort of two three, five years,
so taking it out to two thousand and thirty four
wraps up in NRL. They've got rugby to the end
of the two thousand and thirty one and they've got
cricket in two thousand and thirty two. So you know,
these are all linked to deals now for those early
fan engage in sports, and it's kind of going to

(00:55):
leave teams that scrambling to pick up whatever it can
in terms of its digital subscription model that we're starting
to see with the Football World company.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
How much more do they pay for it this time
than they did last time? And is do we know
for sure or are we getting well.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I've told the market that the price is commercially sensitive.
My sources and Australian media are reporting that it's Australian
fifty million dollars a year, so that equates to around
sixty one million New Zealand dollars. And if that's the case,
that's around fifteen to twenty million dollars more a year.
So that's hefty. But there's a couple of really interesting

(01:33):
sort of balances to that. Sky of course has just
lost HBO Max entertainment content that's around that contract. They
were paying around twenty to thirty million dollars a year
for that, so they may have dipped into some of
that entertainment funding to help pay for the NRL. But
the other thing Ryan, of course, is that they could
recoup some of that and most analysts are expecting them
to recoup it from you and I are from customers

(01:55):
probably around I mean, we've seen some steady increases in
Sky Sports subscriptions over the last few years, around sort
of ten percent. I would expect a similar increase much
more than CPI for instance, so you'd probably be looking
at increases of five to ten percent a year. But
that's the thing about live sport, you know, that is

(02:16):
the one and why the Australian broadcasters have paid so
much for those content is that you just cannot replicate
it anywhere else. A lot of the entertainment content, a
lot of the movies you can get on different streaming platforms,
of course there are, it's always exclusive entertainment content that
live sport, which especially the NAIL which is on such

(02:37):
a high at the moment, is just so attractive for
these broadcasts one.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Hundred percent its must watch local television in a way,
isn't it. Shane Curry Appreciate your time. Heralds Media Inside
It for more.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
From earlier edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
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