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The NRL grand final starts too late

Roar Guru
4th October, 2014
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Jamie Soward celebrates during his time with the Panthers. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Robb Cox)
Roar Guru
4th October, 2014
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7561 Reads

Souths qualifying for the grand final for the first time in 43 years has been a feel good story for the NRL.

The Rabbitohs will be up against the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs today, a side who are never more than a few years between grand final appearances. Souths are favoured to win the grand final.

However, there is a slight dampener on proceedings. Why is the game starting at 7:20pm?

Grand finals should be a family day out watching the football during daylight hours. It is a day where people can have their barbecues or grand final get-togethers at a more convenient time.

MORE NRL Grand Final:
» Kick off time, key information
» Full NRL Finals coverage
» Brian Smith’s look at the NRL Grand Final
» NRL Grand Final preview: South Sydney vs Canterbury

But when you have a broadcaster that has a major say on when the game is played, then the broadcaster will always serve its own interests, not those of the game or the fans.

In the current five-year deal, Nine is paying $85 million in cash per year and $10 million in contra. Nine’s coverage consists of one live game and two delayed matches per week, State of Origin, finals and Test football.

When the deal was struck, there were sources who believed that Nine will be losing $15 million annually on the rights. But that’s what happens when bidding occurs during TV rights negotiations.

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When you have more then one network bidding, the price of the TV rights rises. I understand that broadcasters like Nine want to have some concessions in place so they could recuperate the money they invested in.

There are some concessions that Nine has in it’s coverage.

– Two delayed matches per week
– Five Thursday night games
– A gambling segment at half time
– Cross promotion of Nine’s programming during matches
– Night time grand finals
– Night time finals
– State of Origin matches kicking off closer to 8:30pm

The other thing that happens is in the southern states, whenever an NRL match is completed, they go straight to a movie rather then having a full complete wrap up of the match.

Also what about fans in New Zealand? The match begins 9:20pm.

Meanwhile, Fox’s TV deal over five years was $100 million in cash and $10 million in contra. Fox is paying slightly more compared to Nine and that’s despite the fact that Fox don’t have exclusive rights to State of Origin or the finals.

Like Nine, Fox also has a few allowances with regards to the TV deal. The obvious one is that NRL fans need to pay to subscribe to Fox Sports and the second is Monday Night Football.

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Fox does schedule Sunday night football in the first month. But during that time of the year, the weather is still warm. Having Sunday night football at that time of the year is not a bad thing.

When you look back the comparisons between Nine and Fox, Nine has far too many concessions.

Admittedly relying on just three games a week out of eight (less than half) probably doesn’t present much value.

Are the financial models of Nine or the free-to-air networks outdated where they rely on three-minute block of ads? Networks like Nine need to embrace new media like social media in their NRL coverage.

Whether it’s a live blog here on The Roar, or Twitter or any other form of social media, fans want to have their say throughout the game.

If Nine looks at potential revenue opportunities from social media, then all free-to-air networks could improve their sports coverage.

This would allow the Sunday NRL game to be live, and the grand final to move back to the daylight hours.

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But what about today’s game? I am tipping Souths to end their 43-year drought. However, if Canterbury start off well and lead for majority of the game, then pressure and expectation may be too much to bear for the Rabbitohs.

However, Souths have the better team, and it is their premiership to lose.

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