Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle remains confident Fox Sports hasn’t walked away and expects the broadcaster to bid for TV rights next month.
Castle is taking rugby’s broadcast rights to market for the first time since rugby went professional in 1996, in a move that will have a huge impact on the game’s future.
It was reported Fox Sports had ended their 25-year relationship with the code after RA rejected their offer for the rights package from 2021 to 2025.
But Castle is confident the pay-TV company will come back to the table.
“We went through a negotiating process with them (Fox Sports) through their exclusive negotiating period,” Castle said.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t get to a place we were both comfortable with. So now we’re in tender and we would expect that as a market process they would step into that process.”
RA chairman Cameron Clyne and vice-chairman Brett Robinson will stand down from the board on March 30 and former Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O’Neill believes the new board shouldn’t inherit their TV deal.
Castle confirmed Clyne would continue to work on broadcast negotiations before he departs and said she didn’t think O’Neill’s comments were fair.
“This is a decision that is about generating the most financially beneficial outcome we can for the game,” Castle told reporters at the Super W launch.
“At the end of the day there will be two members departing. There is still a core of the board that is still there.”
The negotiations haven’t been helped by three of Australia’s four Super Rugby teams going winless over the first two rounds, while crowds and TV ratings are down.
“We know we’ve got some work to do to make sure we deliver good outcomes to those fans and that they need to come back to the game and we’re working,” Castle said.
“It’s not going to happen overnight but it’s going to happen by us engaging with them.”
Common feedback from casual fans is they didn’t know the Super Rugby season had started and that’s why Castle said the broadcast deal was “so critical”.
“There will be a portion of that (broadcast money) held aside to make sure we can market the game as hard as we can,” Castle said.
“This is a very competitive market. There is more professional sports teams in Australia per head of population than any other country in the world.”
Geoff
Roar Rookie
Seriously, mate think you are looking up your own anal.pfff
stillmissit
Roar Guru
TSTM: So I did not use your exact words therefore I made no sense to you! Is that your argument? I would call you anal but that's an insult to those who are.
Gav
Guest
EPL is soccer. It`s a no from me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Ei5k9f2ck
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
The challenge for Rugby in Aus is public perception. As long as Rugby fans want to push a line that it's rubbish because of X, Y or Z little flaw, that's what people will hear.
AndyS
Guest
Indeed; no broadcast deal will compensate for a poor product. The only hope for rugby, and the only real advantage offered by a FTA deal, is if their problems stem from poor presentation more than from a poor product. If not they are done either way, as there doesn't seem to be much chance of them fundamentally improving the inherent product quality.
Monorchid
Roar Rookie
This is my first posting to what I think is a great forum. I've followed rugby for most of my 70 years, and I've seen the game move from being amateur to being so-called professional. I think we've lost many of the values of the past with all the modern focus being on money to the exclusion of also producing skilful competitive teams at all levels. RA is not so much about producing teams that the public will want to pay to watch on TV, and to turn up to stadia in numbers. The game is now primarily about finding a business model that will make copious amounts of money for all the business partners. The players are incidental to this scenario except for being the medium for the business model to be successful. And yet ground numbers and stay at home viewers don't seem to exist in the numbers that RA needs. A lot of the debate is about the potential deal with someone like Optus or Foxtel. But there's a rapidly growing and aging contingent of fans like myself in retirement who can't afford pay for view TV, or the cost of a stadium ticket. Luxuries like paying for a viewing service aren't possible for many retirees at a time when Australia's internal economy is not the best, and the cost of basic requirements and utility services is a massive part of the budget for many retirees. It also seems to me that millennials don't seem to be much interested in either rugby code in sufficient numbers. I don't have any answers, but I can still follow local club rugby for free, and that's what I have done for some years. Oh, and I promise my future postings will be shorter.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
I definitely agree there. What I mean is we are talking about something that was growing on Pay TV. So it's reasonable to suggest if could grow and become more valuable as it was in demand. Super Rugby seems to be declining as a % of potential viewers (i.e. the drop in ratings is greater than the drop in subscribers to Fox).
stillmissit
Roar Guru
TWAS: I am stating what any negotiator with even the basics of understanding would say. It doesn't pay to state that you know what the opposition are going to do. BTW you are no laggard in terms of semanitcs.
AndyS
Guest
That had reached a natural limit. Done enough to attract attention, but couldn't do for it what followed. Walked away, but have since settled for a piece rather than all of it.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Off the back of growing pay tv ratings though
AndyS
Guest
Conversely, the BBL took off when it went free-to-air. For mine it was the poster child for form over substance, proving that if you push something hard enough it will sell. That is probably the biggest issue with PTV...there is little point in advertising when the only people who see it have already bought the product. You may believe FTA is now only a small collection of people huddled around their CRT boxes, but the reality is that, for the moment at least, FTA audience reach still far exceeds that of people who refuse to watch anything but purpose-purchased streamed content. So it is still the case that if they want to sell something, they can push pretty hard. Whether they're invested enough to do so with rugby however, well, that's a different question.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Even if they do it that way, the clubs that make it get stronger
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
You’re just arguing semantics now because you want to criticise Castle
AJ
Guest
Wait for NSW to try and stiff Qld On part of the deal and see what happens to NCC. It will be SS all the way! :laughing: Then it will be classic rugby
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Also I’d say RA know despite all the chat, Foxtel need product like Super Rugby. NRL and AFL rate more. But they cost a lot more. Super Rugby is relatively cheap product in comparison. It’s also going to drive subscriptions more (relative to viewer numbers), because it’s exclusive. Fox miss out on a lot of NRL fans that could afford Fox, because they can get a lot of NRL content on 9. They basically capture every Super Rugby fan who can afford the product.
Paul D
Roar Rookie
Not to mention I believe HBO are going into the streaming service themselves. Another shot to the kneecaps of Foxtel.
Gray-Hand
Roar Rookie
Do 30% of people have a Foxtel subscription at the moment, or did 30% of people have a subscription at some time last year? Because they won’t have Game of Thrones to pull in subscribers this year.
Oblonsky‘s Other Pun
Roar Guru
I would be shocked if 30% of the population had access to Foxtel.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
I think the A League how shown how FTA accessibility can have no impact today
gatesy
Roar Guru
It seems to me that she has manouevred them into a situation where they now have to win a competitive tender - all this stuff about free-to-air, national club competition, televising the Shute Shield seems mere puffery. They have taken onboard everything the Roarers, and we mere mortals, have been ranting about the last year or so, and are using it to guage popular opinion. Doesn't mean any of it will be implemented and at the end of it all, they will march to the tune of the successful bidder. It seems to me that the only way a National Club competition could work would be as a Challenge Cup with, say, two or three clubs from Sydney, two from ACT, Melbourne and Perth and, say, one from each of Darwin or Townsville - with no guarantees - in other words, the top 3 or 2 or 1 in that city, in that year. They have a champions league in Europe but there they can fill stadiums. If you are not one of the fans or the tribe of participating clubs, you probably don't watch it. Unless you do it that way, all that happens is that some clubs become strong and rich, at the expense of the others, who go into decline. Personally, I think that the answer is to expand the NRC, and with Free to Air programming it will eventually get traction, and let players move around from state to state. 12 teams - 3 teams Qld, 3 from NSW, 1 from ACT, 2 from Vic, 2 from WA. 1 from NT - play 6 rounds in 2 conferences with a finals series. I don't understand why tinkering with a newish competition is wise - can't we just let it evolve into something meaningful?