BONUS: Cannibalization of eyeballs

Media deals? Media deals!

Over the last few days, reporting has come out that the NRL will soon begin the negotiation of their next broadcast rights deal, with suggestions that the NFL model is of particular inspiration in how it is essentially auctioned off.

For those unaware, the NFL is played on Thursday night, Sunday afternoon and night, and Monday night, every week save for some odd weeks around Christmas where some Friday/Saturday games leak in (those days are usually reserved for college football).

The guts of the NFL season is during the Sunday afternoon slot, with the majority of the games taking place across the two main broadcast partners in Fox and CBS, with the standalone night prime time games on Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights essentially auctioned off as premium packages and presented as their own affair.

It can result in up to 4-5 networks having the rights to the NFL, with Fox and CBS joining the likes of ESPN, Peacock and Amazon (and I’m probably forgetting others) in hosting certain games, a real smorgasbord of executive dick swinging around the bargaining table for Roger Goodell and his cronies.

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Just a quick interlude, and somewhat ironically given the topic of this edition, but I have toyed with the idea of making these bonus editions a paid-subscriber perk, but I haven’t done that for two reasons. One being I haven’t set up the paid system anyway, but also I haven’t done enough bonus editions yet to warrant asking for money and I’m trying to keep it free anyway, plus taking your money would mean I’m obligated to give you bonus content and I kind of like this casual thing we got going on.

There’s a poll at the end of the article under the share and subscribe buttons (please click them too by the way), if I was to commit to more bonus musings, would you become a paid sub? The Tuesday edition will always be free, and I’m really only talking like a couple bucks a month here, I’m thinking out loud. Odds are my innate laziness will win out and the freedom reigns. Apologies for long ramble, back to American sporting landscape analysis.

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America is a weird landscape when it comes to broadcasting. Admittedly I’m not as across the minutiae of NFL brodcasting as I am say, NBA for instance, but I imagine there are similarities in blackout laws and local markets, or general restrictions and access, if not in execution then at least in intention.

The NBA has its own streaming service, NBA League Pass, which has an American and international version. The international version is great, all the games in one place at what I, a basketball sicko, would deem a reasonable price.

The American version sucks major balls, because of blackout laws.

Blackout laws prevent streaming services from showing you an event if it deems you are in the local area. For instance, if you live in Los Angeles and wanted to watch your hometown Lakers play against the visiting Phoenix Suns, you would either have to tune in on cable TV (think a set top box or old school Foxtel, not even Kayo), or physically go to the game. It’s that latter point that is the intention of the blackout, to try and drive ticket sales and fan revenue to arenas and into team owners’ pockets.

Watching a game on the opposite coast? No problem. Why would you want to watch your Lakers on streaming that you’ve paid several hundred dollars for? Here’s Orlando vs. Charlotte instead.

The NFL operates slightly differently when talking about the main Sunday slate. Instead of lockouts there’s regions, and your area determines what game your local Fox/CBS affiliate will show, so you’re basically forced into that game.

If you want freedom of choice? Guess what! Yep, you guessed correctly, there’s a streaming service for that, whether it’s NFL Sunday Ticket, YouTube TV, Roku, the list goes on (they could all be the same thing I genuinely have no idea, I have the NFL GamePass on DAZN, which in itself is a piece of shit platform but I digress).

My overall point is the pointing to the NFL model as an inspiration for the broadcast deal is laughable in that it accomplishes all the wrong things (which makes sense for this current administration I suppose).

Take this excerpt from the Courier Mail.

“We are No.1 in Australia and having more games will make us even bigger.”

Asked if an 18 or 19-team league will affect the broadcast value, V’landys said: “The more teams you have, the more valuable your product is, no doubt about that.

“But in saying all that, it doesn’t matter. We now have the most watched game and when you add the Pacific region, via Papua New Guinea coming up, we have more reach, we are growing and we have the most valuable real estate in sport in Australia on an ongoing basis.

Pardon me?

Pray tell how you’ve managed to manufacture a beneficial relationship between the number of teams increasing and the broadcasting revenue.

I’m not going to sit here and argue for or against the merits of expansion because I simply don’t care enough anymore, it’s going to happen and there’s no sense fighting it, and I’m also not naive enough to think the NRL isn’t a lucrative product as is, but hear me out for a second.

Right now the NRL is in the perfect sweet spot of broadcast slots. You have eight games a week, all spaced out enough and in their own slot. Casual fans can sit down and watch all eight games if they so please and it wouldn’t be an issue.

The schedule is so set in stone that the rigidity brings comfort. You know you have your Thursday 8pm, your Friday matinee, Friday night lights, Saturday afternoon, evening and night, and your Sunday double header (subject to change from 2/4pm or 4/6pm depending on how early in the season it is and how hot it gets).

Gone are the delayed broadcasts and Queensland having a different live game to NSW, gone are the red buttons.

That repetition is a benefit currently, because the average fan knows when the product is on. The amount of games is a benefit because they all have their own window. Watching every NRL game is imminently achievable, something that cannot be said for the NFL or NBA (or the EPL, MLB, NHL…I’m getting off track).

The scary part of the reporting is the openness to fragmenting the product that appears to be occurring at the ARLC.

As mentioned, the NFL operates on selling key assets as standalone packages, like Sunday Night Football for NBC, Monday Night Football for ESPN/ABC/Disney+/whatever the fuck other subsidiaries they have, and so on.

There is also the potential to sell off the NRL finals series as an individual TV rights product, as well as concepts such as Thursday and Friday Night Football.

V’landys said the ARL Commission will look into the NFL’s broadcasting structure and added the NRL’s venture to Las Vegas was a critical weapon in attracting possible streaming audiences in the United States.

“The streaming services would want some exclusivity. We will look at the NFL’s model and see how games could be distributed,” he said.

Yeah no do not like that at all.

The NFL deal might be worth $113B because they’ve divvied up the portfolio as such, but it’s an absolute shitstorm in the States and the fans hate it. It’s actually easier to watch the NFL in Australia than it is in Texas, which is absolute nonsense.

Cannibalising the broadcast deal and selling individual assets might make the NRL more money in the short term, but I don’t think it’s a viable long term growth strategy. Not only does the NRL not have remotely the level of global cut through the NFL has (which I don’t think even PVL is brazen enough to suggest), but lopping off primetime games and Finals to sell to say, DAZN for instance, cuts out the casual fan, which should be the biggest growth focus.

Rusted on sickos like me and you reading this will probably bite the bullet and tack on another service, we’ve probably already got 5-6 in rotation anyway, but you can wave goodbye to a casual Victorian chucking on the footy during the break in an AFL game.

Gone are the halcyon days of every sport being on Fox Sports, I understand that. We won’t get the glory days of the NRL, AFL, Big Bash, NBL (ESPN), EPL (Optus Sport), A-League (Paramount Plus), Champions League (Stan Sport) or Super Rugby (Stan Sport) under one roof again.

Answer me this. If the NRL does adopt a quasi-NFL model and auctions off big ticket items to streaming and PPV platforms, is there anything actually worth selling?

State of Origin and the Grand Final, for instance, are both protected currently under the anti-siphoning laws for events of national significance, meaning that for Australians, free to air networks get the first crack at buying the rights, but that only covers aerials, not streaming and digital rights, so in theory, the streaming rights could be sold overseas.

For instance, currently the State of Origin is broadcast on Nine, and the digital rights are held by 9Now (or 9InAFewMinutes if my experience is anything to go by).

Does that make a material difference? Probably not.

But what is the benefit to an American provider, Disney for instance, ponying up for an asset that will most likely result in a loss on the balance sheet. Or conversely, what leverage does the NRL have to even sell that digital right given the laws in place for Australian viewers. We’re getting into areas of the broadcasting margins I don’t wish to operate, all I know is it seems like a lot of fuss for minimal payoff.

The A-League has suffered in popularity in no small part due to their full time migration to Paramount Plus a few years ago. The loyal diehards stayed on, but I’m not running a Paramount sub just to watch the occasional Sydney FC game.

The NRL is strong enough that it can survive some streaming integration and marginal exclusivity, but it’s cutting off its own nose to spite its face.