Broadcast options for Australian Rugby

[Rebel man]

And Kayo is a key contributor to the ‘revenue per subscriber’ declining 25% due to the cheaper subscription, and the Foxtel subscriber churn rate increasing to 14%, they’ve even admitted that much themselves. They’re cannibalising their own business with the only increase in subscribers accounted for in the countless ‘free trial’ subscriptions on offer across News Corp and Telstra.

With $2billion in debt facilities set to expire in the next 3 years, any sporting code would be wise to demand 1 years payments up front as a matter of insurance against Foxtel bucking under its own debt.

Ultimately cheaper subscriptions is the future fox has been over priced for a long time. It has made them lazy with how they do business. Things like the line rental they pay to Telstra is a archaic way of doing business.

It wasn’t that long ago they were telling us the Sun and Age would go out of print but they have restructured and evolved to the modern market.

Fox has its issues to work through I am not trying to deny that and as I have said I would have no issue going to Optus. I think in a lot of ways Fox could be doing a better job with the sport they cover. Being an Aussie rules fan I think anything on Fox footy is rubbish and hopefully Optus can be an agent for change by either getting the rights and doing it better or by putting pressure on fox to raise their game.

I just wouldn’t be writing fox off that’s all News Corp can see the potential money to be made if they get the business right they aren’t just going to let fox die

 

[Rebel man]

This is a simplistic analysis. The cheapest entry point into foxtel (incl sports) in late 2014 was $50 a month with a 12 month commitment, and only in SD. Even Foxtel play (not even SD) was at least 50 dollars a month.

Things have changed. You can get onto optus sports or Amazon or Netflix in about 2 minutes and most people need absolutely no new hardware to do it. I think having some free content is great but the landscape in 2020 is a lot different to 2014.

A crazy number of Australians have a subscription tv service now. ~5m Netflix accounts. ~3m Foxtel. ~1.7m for Stan. Chuck in Disney, Amazon and Optus sports and you're looking at more than 10 million accounts.

Sports die if they are completely on pay TV, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to see your product.

10 million accounts and a lot of them are double ups

What FTA gives you that you don’t get elsewhere is the promotion. When people watch the news or the Batchelor or all those other reality shows your product is getting exposure. Why else did the big bash go from a comp that nobody watched to a success with the switch from Fox to 10? Because of the increased exposure it got

 

[wamberal]

Can I just ask a question?

If say, the club comps were to run like usual during Super rugby, with the top teams qualifying for a national club comp to be run straight after during the test season, then is there any way to distribute evenly the returning non-test Super players among those clubs that qualify for div 1 of the national club comp?

It would require some sort of mechanism to do it.
.

Maybe some sort of auction, with each competing team given a number of points to spend, and each available returning Soup player given a putative points value. An auction with real money would actually be pretty good television, come to think of it, if there is any money, that is.

 

[Wilson]

Talk of an FA cup style club comp:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sp...p/news-story/e367b49acaa4676f564a4d90c2e1eb2a

This is way more interesting to me as a national club comp, particularly if it means the NRC stays. Biggest take away from this article is that the offering is being put together with the opportunity for significant broadcaster input, so hopefully we end up with a decent product and significant buy in from that broadcaster.

 

[Rebel man]

Talk of an FA cup style club comp:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sp...p/news-story/e367b49acaa4676f564a4d90c2e1eb2a

This is way more interesting to me as a national club comp, particularly if it means the NRC stays. Biggest take away from this article is that the offering is being put together with the opportunity for significant broadcaster input, so hopefully we end up with a decent product and significant buy in from that broadcaster.

FA cup style is the only way it could work. I think it would be great if they could find away for some of the bigger clubs from regional areas in NSW and QLD to compete, gives them something to strive for helps them grow the game in the region. Also if the National club comp is going to incorporate Vic sides they would probably be better than them

 

[Rebel man]

I don’t recall anyone saying “we have to leave Foxtel because it’s dying”, people are just being pragmatic about what the landscape holds for the future of sports broadcasting, and stating that sticking with Foxtel for the sake of it being Foxtel is pointless when it continues to demonstrate falling revenue and rising production costs.

I have no loyalty to fox but would only consider selling it to Fox or Optus, I have seen things in the media about rugbypass and other smaller players but we want to be on a platform people have. Rusted on rugby fans would migrate to another platform to watch it, but we want to appeal to more than just rusted on fans

 

[The Honey Badger]

Problem with the eagles it’s one game a year here and there. Doesn’t give anyone ownership of the team

Ownership = NSW Country, ie everyone outside of Sydney.

They get good support wherever they play in the country. It's a brand and it exists now ready to go.

 

[The Honey Badger]

But what does FTA exposure give you? You reach a greater audience, the larger the audience you reach to more you get from sponsors.

Will the 1 game on a Saturday at 7:30pm be exclusive to FTA or available on the pay provider at the same time?

This will be a sticking point in negotiations.

I hope its exclusive to FTA to give that platform maximum revenue. Otherwise chanel 10 won't pay much.

 

[Rebel man]

Ownership = NSW Country, ie everyone outside of Sydney.

They get good support wherever they play in the country. It's a brand and it exists now ready to go.

Not really going to inspire support from local business putting money in they should be looking for a more permanent way to establish a presence in each regional centre

 

[Rebel man]

Will the 1 game on a Saturday at 7:30pm be exclusive to FTA or available on the pay provider at the same time?

This will be a sticking point in negotiations.

I hope its exclusive to FTA to give that platform maximum revenue. Otherwise chanel 10 won't pay much.

If it’s not exclusive it should have to be a complete simulcast of the FTA coverage adds and all

 

[Strewthcobber]

I reckon we all need a bit of a reality check as to what FTA is likely to look at. Remembering that the lowest rating Saturday night Channel 10 has ever had in their history was a Wallaby v Argie game.
And based on Fox ratings, that's likely to be 4 to 5 times more popular than any Super rugby game.

No commercial TV station is going to be putting a super rugby game on their main channel in peak time.

You might get a secondary channel at peak, or the main channel at 3pm.

Similar to what A-League get, and that's seen as a massive failure with the league at historically low levels of interest ever since it got on commercial FTA.

 

[Rebel man]

I reckon we all need a bit of a reality check as to what FTA is likely to look at. Remembering that the lowest rating Saturday night Channel 10 has ever had in their history was a Wallaby v Argie game.
And based on Fox ratings, that's likely to be 4 to 5 times more popular than any Super rugby game.

No commercial TV station is going to be putting a super rugby game on their main channel in peak time.

You might get a secondary channel at peak, or the main channel at 3pm.

Similar to what A-League get, and that's seen as a massive failure with the league at historically low levels of interest ever since it got on commercial FTA.

Doesn’t matter what station it’s on people have remotes you can change the station. It’s about how willing they are to sell the product, I am not a big A league fan but the failing with that deal was you had to find it buried on a secondary station

 

[wamberal]

We are kidding ourselves if we think we will get product on one of the main channels, except for Test matches.

Maybe this is a bit far-fetched, but I reckon it might work on NITV. They have a helluva lot of sport. Not sure about their reach.

 

[Adam84]

We are kidding ourselves if we think we will get product on one of the main channels, except for Test matches.

I don’t think so, difficult proposition, not kidding ourselves though, in fact I’d say its an absolutely necessary to ensure the survival of the Waratahs/Reds/Brumbies/Rebels brands

 

[Adam84]

Ultimately cheaper subscriptions is the future fox has been over priced for a long time. It has made them lazy with how they do business. Things like the line rental they pay to Telstra is a archaic way of doing business.

It wasn’t that long ago they were telling us the Sun and Age would go out of print but they have restructured and evolved to the modern market.

Fox has its issues to work through I am not trying to deny that and as I have said I would have no issue going to Optus. I think in a lot of ways Fox could be doing a better job with the sport they cover. Being an Aussie rules fan I think anything on Fox footy is rubbish and hopefully Optus can be an agent for change by either getting the rights and doing it better or by putting pressure on fox to raise their game.

I just wouldn’t be writing fox off that’s all News Corp can see the potential money to be made if they get the business right they aren’t just going to let fox die

Over pricing subscriptions is what allowed Foxtel to be so profitable and monopolise the sporting market by out-bidding competitors. Without the the increasing revenue and profits they cant monopolise the sporting market, without a monopoly on the sports they cant charge premium prices.

 

[Rebel man]

Over pricing subscriptions is what allowed Foxtel to be so profitable and monopolise the sporting market by out-bidding competitors. Without the the increasing revenue and profits they cant monopolise the sporting market, without a monopoly on the sports they cant charge premium prices.

Premium pricing also came off the back of all the extra expenses of doing business as opposed to ITV. Yes we are now seeing Optus as a serious competitor but we will see what they can pick up after this round of TV rights as the old Optus TV tried to rival fox in the late 90s early 2000s and ended up going out of business until Optus sports was launched in 2016

 

[Adam84]

Premium pricing also came off the back of all the extra expenses of doing business as opposed to ITV.

what

 

[Rebel man]

what

When fox started it was a lot more expensive to get the product to the consumer and that played a role in the higher price. With all the internet TV providers entering the market now the cost of doing business is a lot less and they can pass that on to the customers

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

In an article in The Aus. (I don't have the link. I read a copied version on reddit) it mentions that RA are looking at potentially running a FA Cup style competition alongside the NRC from next year as a means of enhancing community engagement and maintaining the high performance aspect. It also mentions that it is one of 17 different variations they've come up with of the concept to provide the boradcasters with as many options as possible. Furthermore, it also details that Townsville has expressed its desire to participate and the likelihood others such as Newcastle and the Gold Coast being interested.

I tend to think that if they keep the NRC that it should be restructured to be based around the Super Rugby franchises alongside the Force and Latui at a minimum. Played over two rounds for 10 games. Could look to align games up with the NCC and host multiple games at Ballymore, North Sydney Oval etc.

 

[Braveheart81]

Doesn’t matter what station it’s on people have remotes you can change the station. It’s about how willing they are to sell the product, I am not a big A league fan but the failing with that deal was you had to find it buried on a secondary station

It's a reality though that the main channels attract more viewers.

It's also very unlikely that a FTA broadcaster is going to dedicate much airtime to promoting a low rating show on their secondary channel.

RA and any broadcaster are going to use their limited promotional budgets on test rugby because that's where there is a greatest opportunity of upside in terms of viewers and the dollar values of everything are higher (ticket prices, ad revenue in prime time on a main channel etc.).