Broadcast options for Australian Rugby

[Jamie]

Nobody knows those except for the Stan employees

This article is interesting, Stan has 2.5 million subscribers, and I would say 1/4 may subscribe to Stan Sports?

They have a few panelists for each sport and are producing a lot of extra content this year. Yeah some of it it's not super flash but they are investing. I'm not going to throw numbers out there, but I know that everyone one of my mates watches the rugby on Stan and not on Free to Air.

I was also at the pub for the Reds and Tahs game and they showed it through Stan "Venue" service which was cool, so not your "home" subciption.

We have not had free to air channels at home for years I prefer streaming any day, But yes Free to AIr helps, if anything last week was 160k in rating through 9 and this week 51k through Gem. last year some games were not even mentioned so it is a good start.

Tahs winning helps, and the Reds are on fire!

The Reds are playing the ChiefsSaturday game on GEM, so THAT will gives us an indication of where we are at IMO.

Hopefully a good crowd also

Nine reveals how many people pay for Stan

Nine’s CEO Mike Sneesby shared surprisingly low churn numbers for Stan, as well as flat revenue and double-digit falls in earnings and profit.

www.afr.com

 

[Strewthcobber]

I reckon the FTA rating are kind of irrelevant now. Sure it's nice to have numbers to look at, but Stan aren't selling advertising, they are selling subscriptions, so they'd much rather have everyone on the app.

If the broadcaster isn't interested in prioritizing the FTA numbers, then it's all a bit meh....

Without the Stan info, we don't actually have any idea how many people are watching any of these games

 

[SouthernX]

I reckon the FTA rating are kind of irrelevant now. Sure it's nice to have numbers to look at, but Stan aren't selling advertising, they are selling subscriptions, so they'd much rather have everyone on the app.

If the broadcaster isn't interested in prioritizing the FTA numbers, then it's all a bit meh....

Without the Stan info, we don't actually have any idea how many people are watching any of these games

I don’t think we need subscriptions though… every rugby tragic is selling their spare kidney to pay that Stan or foxtel subscription to get their super rugby fix.

if we want to fix our game FTA is the way… we need the common man to tune in and invest their Saturday nights into a game they only really interested in if wallabies are winning Bledisloe or off to claim bill…

whilst I like the channel 9/stan model… I think it’s time to go back to foxtel (if we can keep FTA as well than great).

 

[Strewthcobber]

think they did well with the telecast.

Can’t wait to see the tv viewership numbers because they did talk up the attendance pushing 50k only to be around 40k.

From @footyindustryAU on Twitter

Roosters v Broncos was the highest rating club H&A game of any code since R2 of the 2020 AFL season when Collingwood and Richmond drew 1.617m for the first AFL match back since COVID shutdown - streaming data not available for that match

South Sydney’s 36-24 win over Manly pulled in a remarkable 838,000 viewers on TV screens and on Fox Sports’ streaming service Kayo.

Fox League had 786,000 people tune into the Roosters and Broncos clash compared to Channel 9’s 784,000 viewers on Sunday night.

 

[KevinO]

Why do people say Stan or go back to foxtel? What's wrong with looking for a new player. Surely one of the other streaming services could be competitive

 

[LeCheese]

Why do people say Stan or go back to foxtel? What's wrong with looking for a new player. Surely one of the other streaming services could be competitive

On that - I noticed the new series of Drive to Survive has 'a Netflix Sport original' (or similar) tag. Obviously the WWE deal is the biggest news recently, but no doubt they'll be looking for more and more content

 

[The Ghost of Raelene]

On that - I noticed the new series of Drive to Survive has 'a Netflix Sport original' (or similar) tag. Obviously the WWE deal is the biggest news recently, but no doubt they'll be looking for more and more content

They've done live Golf Events and have Tennis coming up I think. They've all realised it's a true reality TV with new content.

Why do people say Stan or go back to foxtel? What's wrong with looking for a new player. Surely one of the other streaming services could be competitive

I'm all for any of them. I know people have issues with Fox but if they offer the best product, that's what we need. I think Amazon could be a big chance. They do a heap of it in the US with the NFL and Cricket here in Aus of the next few years. Seem to be the streamer in the most advanced position re live sports. The amount of people with Prime already also removes a barrier.

 

[Braveheart81]

This article is interesting, Stan has 2.5 million subscribers, and I would say 1/4 may subscribe to Stan Sports?

I reckon 600k Stan Sports subscribers would be wildly optimistic.

 

[The Ghost of Raelene]

I'd be very surprised if its 250k

 

[Wilson]

Stan sport had around 150,000 subscribers as of May 2021:

Nine shares rise as Stan Sport subscriptions revealed

Stan gained nearly 150,000 sport subscribers since it began broadcasting rugby union matches earlier this year.

www.smh.com.au

I can't find more recent numbers, but I think it's pretty safe to say Nine would be shouting it from the roof tops if the growth was anywhere near fast enough to get them to 600k. That's basically doubling the subscriber base year on year

 

[PhilClinton]

Yeh if it was 150k back in May 21 and the sports catalogue hasn't exactly gone gangbusters since, I think 200k - 250k is pretty good assumption.

 

[Wallaby Man]

I work in this industry looking at the data available to me, around 10% of Stan subscribers have StanSport and less than 2% of the Australian population actually uses it on a regular basis.

I do worry for the future of the platform, not Stan but StanSport if they can’t get any traction with a major code to come onboard.

Just my opinion but I think we are as likely to go back to Fox as we are to stay with Stan. They have done a good job with their production but we are incredibly hidden on that platform.

 

[Strewthcobber]

A lot of the growth since June 2021 will be Champions League as well.

 

[Highlander35]

It's an interesting one long term, particularly as it looks like from Q4 Seven gets full digital rights to Cricket and AFL: and anything that's on FTA gets broadcast via 7Plus as well. As a younger millennial whose television is a Streaming and Gaming box, that's a big difference in how I might choose to consoom those products.

 

[Homer]

The biggest issue is that when rugby dumped Fox, News Ltd black banned rugby. The amount of news articles, game coverage advertising etc is now a fraction of what it was so it is impossible to grow the game. The SMH does maybe one article per day.

Unfortunately, by cutting out the country's largest 'news' provider rugby destroyed its already non-existent marketing plan. No broadcaster can provide what Fox/news can unless the deal includes a huge marketing budget.

ALso Fox shares sports rights for crikect/afl/nrl with free to air, why cant rugby get the same?

 

[Slim 293]

The biggest issue is that when rugby dumped Fox, News Ltd black banned rugby. The amount of news articles, game coverage advertising etc is now a fraction of what it was so it is impossible to grow the game. The SMH does maybe one article per day.

Unfortunately, by cutting out the country's largest 'news' provider rugby destroyed its already non-existent marketing plan. No broadcaster can provide what Fox/news can unless the deal includes a huge marketing budget.

ALso Fox shares sports rights for crikect/afl/nrl with free to air, why cant rugby get the same?

A few points...

RA didn't dump Fox... RA went to market and Fox effectively dumped rugby.

Rugby doesn't have the bargaining position of those other sports to negotiate a deal with Fox that also includes a generous FTA contingent outside the Wallabies.

Rugby had more newspaper coverage through the SMH than any of its News competitors when Fox had the rights.

 

[Rob42]

A few points...

RA didn't dump Fox... RA went to market and Fox effectively dumped rugby.

Rugby doesn't have the bargaining position of those other sports to negotiate a deal with Fox that also includes a generous FTA contingent outside the Wallabies.

Rugby had more newspaper coverage through the SMH than any of its News competitors when Fox had the rights.

And News Corp had been talking down Australian rugby even before the rights negotiation started. Let's not get all Stockholm Syndrome on this, we're better without Fox.

 

[Strewthcobber]

ALso Fox shares sports rights for crikect/afl/nrl with free to air, why cant rugby get the same?

It's all a trade-off.

Stan offered their $100m/3 year with a non-exclusive FTA game on Saturday night and sharing all Wallaby tests.

Apparently Fox offered $40m for all games exclusively on Fox (ex -Wallabies).

Ra took less money to get the games on FTA

The reality is FTA Super Rugby games rate so poorly that they are pretty much worthless to the broadcasters

 

[SouthernX]

Fox sports can reinvent their rugby offering… as long as they don’t bring back smooth brain Kearns and Kafer…

Id really like Marto back though… he was a great commentator.

if we sign up with Fox we do need the FTA though. So sounds like a sticky situation.

getting on the kayo app is key!

 

[Braveheart81]

Stan offered their $100m/3 year with a non-exclusive FTA game on Saturday night and sharing all Wallaby tests.

Apparently Fox offered $40m for all games exclusively on Fox (ex -Wallabies).

There's generally a contra element in there that can distort things a bit. The actual value of the contra is incredibly dubious in my view in that the broadcaster is claiming the value of advertising their own product.

I am not sure how that fits in with the two figures though. I can't find anything specific on it but potentially the cash difference was less than $6.6m a year.

The broadcasting of women's rugby and club rugby on Stan is definitely a substantial boost for the game even if we're not getting extra revenue for it.