Could the NRL disappear behind a paywall?

The sports viewing experience is becoming increasingly fractured, as major sports diversify into streaming services, forcing fans to pay for content across multiple platforms.

Dr Hunter Fujak, Senior Lecturer in Sports Management at Deakin University, told Mornings with Matt White the wheel has come full circle.

“If you remember in analogue days where it was just Foxtel and free-to-air, everything was in one place for sport, more or less, or a couple of places,” Fujak said on SEN 1170.

“But people complained that it cost a lot to have Foxtel. Then we went through this digitalization where it broke apart into small pieces, which each piece definitely costs less than Foxtel used to.

“But there are now so many pieces that people are forced, if they want to, pay basically as much as we started. It's a very confusing landscape for both consumers and sport management.”

The NRL has met with DAZN, Amazon and Netflix, as Peter V’Landys and Andrew Abdo kickstart the next round of broadcast rights negotiations.

Yet despite the global trend towards streaming services, Dr. Fujak believes the Australian market is still somewhat resistant to this change.

“Even if there was that opportunity, the frustration it would cause fans to have to watch two different, three different free to air networks plus two providers on pay TV would just upset consumers,” he added.

“And ultimately our sport managers, Peter V’Landys, et cetera, are relatively cognizant of trying to keep fans happy. So, I think yes, market economics might suggest you could maximize the revenue by splitting your rights all these different ways.

“But in practice, I think we have a pretty steady culture here of trying to limit the amount of distribution channels to one or two, basically to keep people happy, at least within an individual sport.

“In Australia, we are fundamentally blessed to have this (anti-siphoning) legislation, which is basically the mechanism that has ensured that we are used to having so much on free-to-air.

“If you go to any other country in the world, they simply will not have the same amount of premium content on free-to-air, which is why in most other places, the rates of subscription to pay TV platforms have always been way higher than in Australia, where historically they've only been at about 30 % of the population.

“So, we have regulatory mechanisms to ensure that there is baseline level access for everyone. Should the regulatory framework be removed, it won’t necessarily translate to NRL, AFL and cricket disappearing behind a paywall.

“The benefit of the free to air coverage isn't just the revenue it generates, but the fact that its exposure perpetuates the sport and culture. So, people talk about rugby league because they're always seeing rugby league. And so there is strategic value in keeping your content on free to air, even beyond the money.

“So I think even without the anti-siphoning list, your AFLs and the NRLs would most definitely still keep all their finals on free to air. They would definitely still keep a free to air game on Friday, for instance.

“There might be some reductions slightly, but I think overall it wouldn't change terribly much even without the legislation.”