August 22, 2025 • 12 mins
New Zealand Rugby has committed to Sky for another five years.
Nearly every All Blacks match, including the 2029 Lions Tour, the new Nations Cup, and all matches in the Sanzaar countries will broadcast on Sky Sport.
TVNZ has also secured NPC rights, along with a few Farah Palmer Cup games, which will be broadcast free-to-air on TVNZ+.
However, the deal doesn't include five future All Blacks tests, yet to be named, which will be open to bidding when they are announced.
Chair of New Zealand Rugby David Kirk joined the show to discuss the ins and outs of the deal.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalk.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Zb B has confirmed a new agreement with Sky as
broadcast partner for All Rugby in New Zealand for the
five years from twenty twenty six to twenty thirty. Here
are the details. Sky will broadcast exclusively live every All
Blacks match played in Sansar countries, including the Bledisloe Cup
and Rugby Championship, New Tours between the Spring Box and
(00:34):
the All Blacks, the New Nations Cup Tournament and the
twenty twenty nine British and Irish Lions Tour of New Zealand.
Also All Black Ferns matches played in Sansar countries and
the British and Irish Lions Women's Tour. Here in twenty
twenty seven, every Super Rugby, Pacific Super Rugby, Opicky and
superw Match, MAULTI, All Blacks and All Blacks fifteen matches
(00:56):
played in Sansar countries as well. TV and ZED Meantime
has secured free to wear broadcast rights for provincial rugby,
including all in PC matches and select Farah Palmer Cup
and Heartland Championship games in all ninety three provincial matches
will be available free to view on TV and Z Plus,
(01:18):
with three games a week in appointment viewing slots on
TV and Z one. Sky customers of course will have
access to all of those games as well. Let's bring
in New Zealand Rugby chair David Kirk. David, thanks for
joining us. How happy are you with the deal you've struck.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Well, I'm very happy. I think it's a great deal
Ponzell and Rugby, and I'm sure it's a deal a
little work well for Sky, so we'll have a committed
and enthusiastic partner to work with and looking forward to
the next five years.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
How important was it to you to have NPC on
free to air?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Very important. We know that it's more and more competitive
to have young people and fans generally engaged with rugby.
There are there lots of alternatives these days, so it's
really important for us to be able to get the
great pregnancy play in this country, both men's and women's,
in front of as many people as possible, and particularly
(02:14):
in the period of challenging household budgets, it really is
great to be able to broadcast free to wear ninety
three NPC games and selected far apart of Cup games
and also Heartland games.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
How do those conversations play out? Because I guess in
an ideal world, a broadcaster wants everything behind their paywall,
whereas as you say, you want as many eyeballs on
the game as possible while maximizing your broadcast revenue. So
is that one of the more challenging parts of the
conversation the negotiation?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yes, I think you know what happens in these negotiations
as people bring to the negotiation table what matters to them,
what's important to them, and what they want to see
in the agreement. And often there's lots of agreement on
that and you can be pretty alike. But then sometimes
there's disagreement and you have to find ways around that,
(03:06):
and you know, sometimes there are tradeoffs, and the trade
offs are, you know, how much money one party is
prepared to pay, and if they're not prepared to pay
more than that, then we need to find other ways
for the party with the content that's us ended are
to get value out of the deal. And being able
to carve out matches or to to co broadcast matches
(03:31):
is a way in which we've been able to solve
some of those challenges, so it means it's kind of
a win win for both parties when you get that agreement.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Sky have recently bought TV three. Of course, did that
happen a bit too late for them to be considered
as a free to wear partner.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I don't know that would have been you know, that
would have been to them, but I think yes, as
the untasis, it wasn't that long ago that they announced
that they had made that purchase, and here we are
announced in the agreement, and the agreement has been been
in the process of being negotiated for considerable time before that,
so it was very late in the piece. But they
(04:07):
know they'll have their own views and understandings about what
they want to do with TV three.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Up to five offshore all Blacks and black Fern's tests
respectively across the five year period are not included in
this deal. Why have you done that?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yeah, this is another very innovative and really interesting carve
out if you like carving out five test matches. We
don't know exactly what they are or where they'll be
at the moment, but these these test matches are not
covered by the deal, which means the way opportunity for
us to think about reach and engagement with fans. We
(04:44):
may make a decision to take less money but engage
more people, for instance, or we may find that there's
an alternative broadcaster that would like to broadcast those games
in New Zealand. So it just gives us an opportunity
to be a bit innovative, to take advantage of potential
market changes and opportunities. And again, I think it's something
that works for both parties.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Is there any chance that Sky will bid for and
or win broadcast rights for some or all of those
test matches?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
That will be entirely up to them. They will, they
are certainly very welcome the bids for them, and I
imagine they will actually but that they can't certainly can't
forecast exactly what they will do, but they will certainly
be in the mixes they want to be.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Is this a way of getting the all blacks onto
a massive platform like Netflix for example.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
That's definitely a possibility, no doubt, that's definitely possibility, and
it's more sort of beginning to test the waters a
little bit, if you like, for major global streaming program platforms.
Is what they are inclined to do. So taking the opportunity,
for instance, to broadcast or you match in New Zealand
(05:54):
and in other jurisdictions and seeing what responses and how
they can leverage that for growth of their own subscribers
and so on will be something that we will certainly
be happy to to investigate and I think they would
as well.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Again, the balance, I guess, David iss eyeballs v money,
isn't it? You know, if you've got you know, a
significant amount of money for the rights to broadcast these
these five matches, would it actually matter how many people
were watching?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Well, yes, yes it does. It always matters how many
people are watching. We want to get the game in
front of people, and we want people to understand, to
connect with our teams, to watch our teams, hopefully to
watch our teams win. So that's that's always at the
forefront of our think. But but of course we need
to fund the game. We need to fund all the
(06:48):
investment in the community game. We need to fund the
professional players, so we need we need to balance those
two things.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I'm almost certain you've done market research on this. You
believe that there are potential, you know, potential bidders plural
for the rights for these matches.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, absolutely, we know. You know, it's you know, there's
range of people who could who could definitely do it.
And you've pointed to the major global streaming services and
there are a lot of them now, and there are
a number of services which are very specifically focused on
sport and indeed buying rights to sport around the world.
So you know, those are two sort of groups of
(07:27):
potential bar but there would be a range of others
as well. There are definitely opportunities.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And this and just to clarify these matches, they're like
a young spring box all blacks before the last Rugby
World Cup sort of arrangement or a one off test somewhere.
Is that Is that what we're talking about here?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Correct, That's exactly what we're talking about, all right.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Can you foresee a time, David, where live Rugby is
broadcast on your own digital channel ended our plus and
and you sell direct to consumer.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
That's a possibility, It's it's it would be a little
way off at the moment in terms of our ability
to monetize that. At the moment, we are not charging
a lot for people to join inded ore Plus because
we want to build and build our fan base, and
we want people to engage with us and engage with
the specific content we produce in the house and sometimes
(08:17):
we re deploy from other places on to end at
our plus. We want to build a a fan base
all around the world, and many other sports have have
done this is it's a great way to be able
to offer a real value to sponsors when they know
that you can put them in front of their brands,
(08:37):
in front of a lot of people on your own
digital platform.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And it's been widely reported this deal is worth significantly
less and dollar terms to ends it are than the
previous deal or is that something that you have budgeted for, Yes,
it is, and it is.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
We're somewhat less as a domestic deal with the previous deal.
People familiar with the circumstances will know that the last
deal was a really, really a one off situation when
there was a great deal of competition for the broadcasting
rights because Spark at that time was starting up their
own sports but broadcasting rights and they were very keen
(09:16):
to get broadcasting rights. So that was a one off
situation which we didn't have this time around. But what
we do have this time around is a whole lot
more international content, including the greatest rivalry with South Africa
and the Nation's Cup and other events. And that's going
to get us back to in total pretty much exactly
(09:38):
where we are with the old deal.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Was the were the all Blacks and Blackfoods test matches
outside the steal a major sticking point for Sky.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
The five you mean we're talking about No, no, no,
they were. I mean that's again, you know, a way
of squaring the circle if you like. You know, they
we they were only able to pay a certain amount.
We realized that there was more value and they accepted
that there was more value in these additional games. They
weren't able to pay for those, so they were happy
(10:07):
for us to find a way to monetize them ourselves later.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
All right, So squared away. So in summary, happy with
where we are heading into the next five years, and
some opportunities, as you say, to leverage some broadcast revenue
from these matches that sit outside this deal you've struck
with Sky.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, they're absolutely happy, Jason. You know, it's been going
on for a long time. It's great to bring it
to close. It's great to have both parties feeling that
they're going forward together. We've been partners for a long time,
going forward together with a deal that works for both
of us. So we're both feeling good about it. And
that's exactly where we want to be because we've got
to work together for the next ideas.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
We'll next port of business. You've got to find a
new CEO. How's that going underway?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
You know, the way these processes work, there's a clear
position description written, so we need to really be clear
about what we're looking for in our next CEO, and
we need to engage a search consultant partner. And we've
done both of those two things, and now that partners
out there scouring the landscape for you know, a long
(11:13):
list of people, and then that gets shortened to a
short list and then we start the interview process. So
it takes a little while. It's a sort of a
methodical process, and you know, we're very hopeful that we'll
we'll find someone who'll be great.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
For us, be pretty attractive role. Wouldn't that it'd be
a few people with their hat in that ring.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I think you're right, Jason, people, you know, the all
blacks and increasingly our other black brands and black fans
in our sevens teams are you know, extraordinary sporting teams
on the global stage and we have you know, it's
challenging for CHIV executive that we but but if you're
up to the challenge, you know, the combination of a
global running a global sports brand and company and you're
(11:57):
running community rugby and investing in community rugby and being
part of what rugby means to New Zealand is it's
pretty attractive. As you say, I think it's a really
challenging that I am something that could be really meaningful
and worthwhile for chief Exdicators.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Really appreciate you joining us to give us background to
the broadcast deal. David, Thanks so much for your time
this afternoon. Thank you, David. David Kirk, chair of the
Board of New Zealand Rugby, with some background to this
broadcast deal.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, Listen live
to News Talk st B weekends from midday or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalk.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Zb B has confirmed a new agreement with Sky as
broadcast partner for All Rugby in New Zealand for the
five years from twenty twenty six to twenty thirty. Here
are the details. Sky will broadcast exclusively live every All
Blacks match played in Sansar countries, including the Bledisloe Cup
and Rugby Championship, New Tours between the Spring Box and
(00:34):
the All Blacks, the New Nations Cup Tournament and the
twenty twenty nine British and Irish Lions Tour of New Zealand.
Also All Black Ferns matches played in Sansar countries and
the British and Irish Lions Women's Tour. Here in twenty
twenty seven, every Super Rugby, Pacific Super Rugby, Opicky and
superw Match, MAULTI, All Blacks and All Blacks fifteen matches
(00:56):
played in Sansar countries as well. TV and ZED Meantime
has secured free to wear broadcast rights for provincial rugby,
including all in PC matches and select Farah Palmer Cup
and Heartland Championship games in all ninety three provincial matches
will be available free to view on TV and Z Plus,
(01:18):
with three games a week in appointment viewing slots on
TV and Z one. Sky customers of course will have
access to all of those games as well. Let's bring
in New Zealand Rugby chair David Kirk. David, thanks for
joining us. How happy are you with the deal you've struck.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Well, I'm very happy. I think it's a great deal
Ponzell and Rugby, and I'm sure it's a deal a
little work well for Sky, so we'll have a committed
and enthusiastic partner to work with and looking forward to
the next five years.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
How important was it to you to have NPC on
free to air?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Very important. We know that it's more and more competitive
to have young people and fans generally engaged with rugby.
There are there lots of alternatives these days, so it's
really important for us to be able to get the
great pregnancy play in this country, both men's and women's,
in front of as many people as possible, and particularly
(02:14):
in the period of challenging household budgets, it really is
great to be able to broadcast free to wear ninety
three NPC games and selected far apart of Cup games
and also Heartland games.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
How do those conversations play out? Because I guess in
an ideal world, a broadcaster wants everything behind their paywall,
whereas as you say, you want as many eyeballs on
the game as possible while maximizing your broadcast revenue. So
is that one of the more challenging parts of the
conversation the negotiation?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yes, I think you know what happens in these negotiations
as people bring to the negotiation table what matters to them,
what's important to them, and what they want to see
in the agreement. And often there's lots of agreement on
that and you can be pretty alike. But then sometimes
there's disagreement and you have to find ways around that,
(03:06):
and you know, sometimes there are tradeoffs, and the trade
offs are, you know, how much money one party is
prepared to pay, and if they're not prepared to pay
more than that, then we need to find other ways
for the party with the content that's us ended are
to get value out of the deal. And being able
to carve out matches or to to co broadcast matches
(03:31):
is a way in which we've been able to solve
some of those challenges, so it means it's kind of
a win win for both parties when you get that agreement.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Sky have recently bought TV three. Of course, did that
happen a bit too late for them to be considered
as a free to wear partner.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I don't know that would have been you know, that
would have been to them, but I think yes, as
the untasis, it wasn't that long ago that they announced
that they had made that purchase, and here we are
announced in the agreement, and the agreement has been been
in the process of being negotiated for considerable time before that,
so it was very late in the piece. But they
(04:07):
know they'll have their own views and understandings about what
they want to do with TV three.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Up to five offshore all Blacks and black Fern's tests
respectively across the five year period are not included in
this deal. Why have you done that?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yeah, this is another very innovative and really interesting carve
out if you like carving out five test matches. We
don't know exactly what they are or where they'll be
at the moment, but these these test matches are not
covered by the deal, which means the way opportunity for
us to think about reach and engagement with fans. We
(04:44):
may make a decision to take less money but engage
more people, for instance, or we may find that there's
an alternative broadcaster that would like to broadcast those games
in New Zealand. So it just gives us an opportunity
to be a bit innovative, to take advantage of potential
market changes and opportunities. And again, I think it's something
that works for both parties.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Is there any chance that Sky will bid for and
or win broadcast rights for some or all of those
test matches?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
That will be entirely up to them. They will, they
are certainly very welcome the bids for them, and I
imagine they will actually but that they can't certainly can't
forecast exactly what they will do, but they will certainly
be in the mixes they want to be.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Is this a way of getting the all blacks onto
a massive platform like Netflix for example.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
That's definitely a possibility, no doubt, that's definitely possibility, and
it's more sort of beginning to test the waters a
little bit, if you like, for major global streaming program platforms.
Is what they are inclined to do. So taking the opportunity,
for instance, to broadcast or you match in New Zealand
(05:54):
and in other jurisdictions and seeing what responses and how
they can leverage that for growth of their own subscribers
and so on will be something that we will certainly
be happy to to investigate and I think they would
as well.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Again, the balance, I guess, David iss eyeballs v money,
isn't it? You know, if you've got you know, a
significant amount of money for the rights to broadcast these
these five matches, would it actually matter how many people
were watching?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Well, yes, yes it does. It always matters how many
people are watching. We want to get the game in
front of people, and we want people to understand, to
connect with our teams, to watch our teams, hopefully to
watch our teams win. So that's that's always at the
forefront of our think. But but of course we need
to fund the game. We need to fund all the
(06:48):
investment in the community game. We need to fund the
professional players, so we need we need to balance those
two things.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I'm almost certain you've done market research on this. You
believe that there are potential, you know, potential bidders plural
for the rights for these matches.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, absolutely, we know. You know, it's you know, there's
range of people who could who could definitely do it.
And you've pointed to the major global streaming services and
there are a lot of them now, and there are
a number of services which are very specifically focused on
sport and indeed buying rights to sport around the world.
So you know, those are two sort of groups of
(07:27):
potential bar but there would be a range of others
as well. There are definitely opportunities.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And this and just to clarify these matches, they're like
a young spring box all blacks before the last Rugby
World Cup sort of arrangement or a one off test somewhere.
Is that Is that what we're talking about here?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Correct, That's exactly what we're talking about, all right.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Can you foresee a time, David, where live Rugby is
broadcast on your own digital channel ended our plus and
and you sell direct to consumer.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
That's a possibility, It's it's it would be a little
way off at the moment in terms of our ability
to monetize that. At the moment, we are not charging
a lot for people to join inded ore Plus because
we want to build and build our fan base, and
we want people to engage with us and engage with
the specific content we produce in the house and sometimes
(08:17):
we re deploy from other places on to end at
our plus. We want to build a a fan base
all around the world, and many other sports have have
done this is it's a great way to be able
to offer a real value to sponsors when they know
that you can put them in front of their brands,
(08:37):
in front of a lot of people on your own
digital platform.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And it's been widely reported this deal is worth significantly
less and dollar terms to ends it are than the
previous deal or is that something that you have budgeted for, Yes,
it is, and it is.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
We're somewhat less as a domestic deal with the previous deal.
People familiar with the circumstances will know that the last
deal was a really, really a one off situation when
there was a great deal of competition for the broadcasting
rights because Spark at that time was starting up their
own sports but broadcasting rights and they were very keen
(09:16):
to get broadcasting rights. So that was a one off
situation which we didn't have this time around. But what
we do have this time around is a whole lot
more international content, including the greatest rivalry with South Africa
and the Nation's Cup and other events. And that's going
to get us back to in total pretty much exactly
(09:38):
where we are with the old deal.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Was the were the all Blacks and Blackfoods test matches
outside the steal a major sticking point for Sky.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
The five you mean we're talking about No, no, no,
they were. I mean that's again, you know, a way
of squaring the circle if you like. You know, they
we they were only able to pay a certain amount.
We realized that there was more value and they accepted
that there was more value in these additional games. They
weren't able to pay for those, so they were happy
(10:07):
for us to find a way to monetize them ourselves later.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
All right, So squared away. So in summary, happy with
where we are heading into the next five years, and
some opportunities, as you say, to leverage some broadcast revenue
from these matches that sit outside this deal you've struck
with Sky.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, they're absolutely happy, Jason. You know, it's been going
on for a long time. It's great to bring it
to close. It's great to have both parties feeling that
they're going forward together. We've been partners for a long time,
going forward together with a deal that works for both
of us. So we're both feeling good about it. And
that's exactly where we want to be because we've got
to work together for the next ideas.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
We'll next port of business. You've got to find a
new CEO. How's that going underway?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
You know, the way these processes work, there's a clear
position description written, so we need to really be clear
about what we're looking for in our next CEO, and
we need to engage a search consultant partner. And we've
done both of those two things, and now that partners
out there scouring the landscape for you know, a long
(11:13):
list of people, and then that gets shortened to a
short list and then we start the interview process. So
it takes a little while. It's a sort of a
methodical process, and you know, we're very hopeful that we'll
we'll find someone who'll be great.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
For us, be pretty attractive role. Wouldn't that it'd be
a few people with their hat in that ring.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I think you're right, Jason, people, you know, the all
blacks and increasingly our other black brands and black fans
in our sevens teams are you know, extraordinary sporting teams
on the global stage and we have you know, it's
challenging for CHIV executive that we but but if you're
up to the challenge, you know, the combination of a
global running a global sports brand and company and you're
(11:57):
running community rugby and investing in community rugby and being
part of what rugby means to New Zealand is it's
pretty attractive. As you say, I think it's a really
challenging that I am something that could be really meaningful
and worthwhile for chief Exdicators.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Really appreciate you joining us to give us background to
the broadcast deal. David, Thanks so much for your time
this afternoon. Thank you, David. David Kirk, chair of the
Board of New Zealand Rugby, with some background to this
broadcast deal.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, Listen live
to News Talk st B weekends from midday or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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