Optus put rugby broadcast negotiations on hold

@Ken How could it possibly be any clearer that Foxtel/NewsCorp is fully committed to itself ...... and nothing else??

@PeterK Yes agree and then Australia would end up like Argentina (without the passion) :crying:

Geez that is shocking uncle. I remember recently, was it the women's football wc? They had to refund and stop charging it was so poor. When I heard they were the other party, I was hoping they had improved significantly.

I think that there is some merit to this approach. Start off with both countries having their domestic competition matches, and then follow up with a play off set up with all teams together based on rankings. Broadcasters, especially dedicated sport broadcasters, around the world are crying out for live sport content at this stage which is why the Belarus football league, by continuing to play during this crisis (seemingly ignoring medical advice) has grown its global distribution ten fold. Therefore the earlier SH rugby can start the likelihood of decent broadcast deals in the UK, France, Italy, and Americas whilst other sports are on hold.

We have Optus wireless broadband at home, the main reason being is that the nbn is useless at our place. Major problem is downloading is pitifully slow. As I write this (currently 8-45am) a programme in HD, 55 minutes long is downloading, it has been doing so since 7-15am, streaming is out of the question. Try contacting Optus to raise issues with it. Fat chance, phone contact is almost impossible and if you're prepared to wait an inordinate length of time you will get a wood duck on the line giving you platitudes and assurances, nothing of substance. Email with Optus is an impossibility. Optus, like most telcos is mercenary, and only interested in staying alive. Rugby on Optus, not for me. Oh and the programme is still downloading (8-49).

Does it actually? I feel peak SR audiences suggest a potential total viewer base of that. Problem is how many pay $120 a year for one game a week? If they had started a few years back sure, but as I elaborate below, if NRL and AFL aren't doing this with much bigger cash flows, where is the money coming from for Rugby to invest in this? The thing is to have it up and running ready for profit, you've needed to have it running for a loss for years prior.

I agree it's not feasible in the tight timeframes currently available, but if they'd started developing this expertise a few years back when the women's 7 series started, in conjunction with the participating unis F&TV schools, then it could be a different story. Peak SR audiences of 100k suggest a potential subscriber market of about double that. I suspect many subscriber would be more than happy to bypass the debacle that is Fox :-)

Thinking out of the box, if thete is no rugby in the NH for 6 months, why don't RA organise a club rugby championship with a selection of NH and SH clubs down under in July and August . They would have to come here and go into quarintine for 2 weeks of course as would any spectators. Golf and beach resorts could be taken over and soley used as the quarintine venues for both the clubs and spectstors which would bring some revenue to these otherwise empty resorts and the clubs and spectators can pay for their stay in them rather thsn our government. It could also be a good earner for RA.

jock, i think the main thing apart the money and televised coverage is the pr vehicle that they provide to drive the game forward. when signing the broadcaster, imo they need to weigh up money, coverage and the ability to promote the game. it would have been interesting to see how optus / channel ten could promote the game vs the fox / news limited offering.

Does hundreds of thousands of subscribers really seem manageable? At its peak the best SR games only got about 100,000 viewers. I think you’re thinking outside of the square here but my concern is you are basically recruiting a bunch of inexperienced people and your quality of broadcast surely suffers (I understand you obviously do have a number of experienced people). I don’t think starting from scratch and trying to develop broadcast capacity on the cheap for an organisation with no experience in it is really viable.

Those numbers seem manageable, though the $10 m in costs seems over the odds. How much does it cost to broadcast a game? Even if its $100k, there's no way 100 (Australian-based) games per year get broadcast. But thinking about this further, why doesn't RA form a broadcast company with the eight unis that run women's 7s teams as joint partners? It would provide a terrific opportunity for aspiring student cameramen, sound technicians and commentators. I imagine the quality would be sufficient for the women's 7s series and club games. SR and Tests would be professionally outsourced, but as a good number of those would be covered by FTA the costs should not be excessive. And speaking of 7s series, why isn't there a men's version running in October/November on Friday/Saturday night when there is little live sport, featuring the 7 NRC teams and three local invitation teams from whichever city/state is hosting?

I should elaborate that RA are kidding themselves if that’s not their end goal. But with NRL and AFL both much bigger in potential subscriber base and neither indicated a chance to attempting this next Tv rights deal (in fact looks like NRL may be extended) it would be awfully brave/bold/stupid for RA to take the risk.

Is it? Fox were offered to bid and could have just doubled down the same bid. It’s not like they tried to exclude Fox in any way.

I heard somebody say Optus had allowed that. In my head I had $50k so closer to $2.5M probably.

TWAS how do you break down the $10m a year to broadcast? Equipment, salaries etc? Is that a guess or do you know that area a bit? I have absolutely no idea how quantify it.

A bit, yeah. No saying how they would react to telling them you are going to market. No one predicted COVID though. Can't blame anyone for that.

I think you are being very optimistic that a 6 month competition with Australian teams playing NZ teams could be sold world wide. Our rugby is not of a great standard and 6 months of being whipped by NZ teams wouldn't do much for the game here. Perhaps we should be looking at a competition with Pacific Island teams and then we might stand a chance.

And what a hero you are making unsubstantiated slanderous claims of somebody on the internet. Sure everybody who has worked with Castle has said the complete opposite, but I'll listen to Realist's posts he makes between stacking shelves.

If they don't get about 200,000-300,000 subscribers paying $120 a year they are up a creek without a baddle. Actually it will cost up to $10M to broadcast. So probably 300,000-400,000 subscribers.