Talking Footy

AFLcrap1 wrote:

We are talking about the only part of the TV deal that has been finalised for the NRL .

The FTA deal easily beats the Aflol FTA deal .


Go on you can say it ..it's not hard ..your carer will help you .

Doesn't it eat you up that you got smashed .

Qatar-based sports broadcasting giant beIN Sports may bid for the pay-television rights to screen National Rugby League matches from 2018, creating a well-funded potential competitor to Fox Sports.

The NRL would benefit from other bidders to compete with Fox Sports and Foxtel, whose half-owner News Corp is on a campaign to unseat NRL chief executive Dave Smith after he snubbed the pay-TV giant by striking an exclusive $925 million five-year free-to-air deal with Nine Entertainment Co two weeks ago.

beIN Sports, which did not respond to requests for comment, is interested in bidding for the rights and has said as much to the NRL, sources said.

Owned by the Al Jazeera network, beIN Sports started operating in Australia last year when it took over the Setanta Sports Network. The Setanta channel, which is carried through Foxtel, Fetch TV and digitally over the internet was rebranded beIN Sport.



The network has been aggressively buying up soccer rights, including taking the bulk of the European Champions League this year, and Italian, Spanish and German rights, and shows the Six Nations rugby union.

Other mooted potential contenders for NRL rights include the ESPN Network, while the NRL has held discussions with the likes of Google and Netflix – though it is unclear if they would pay big money for the rights.

Despite News's campaign against rugby league's chiefs, NRL remains an important sport for Foxtel and for Fox Sports in Sydney and Brisbane, where many fans subscribe to cable or satellite to watch its coverage.

Last week, after rival code the Australian Football League signed the largest broadcast rights deal in Australian sport history with News Corp, Seven West Media and Telstra, News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said: "I guess we will engage with the NRL in time." The three companies will pay $2.508 billion over six years.

Foxtel chief executive Richard Freudenstein has since stressed that the "NRL are very good partners" and said "we obviously want to keep working with them". Foxtel provides some of the funding for Fox Sports' current $110 million-a-year NRL contract.

The_Wookie wrote:

oh ffs. another pipedream. Id put money on them not being involved at all. Hell this is europsort all over again - they didnt even know the rights were up for negotation but "were interested".

Basically anyone with a streaming company is going to get named before this is done - and its all bullshit.