The game is on in the free-to-air sports broadcasting space.
- Increased competition in the free-to-air sports market has seen a surge in content for Kiwi fans over the past 12 months
- Sky has made use of Sky Open as an outlet to promote its content to new audiences, but has to find balance with its pay products
- TVNZ and Warner Bros. Discovery have looked to provide competition to Sky after the demise of Spark Sport
- Digital players NZME and Stuff also remain possibilities, through partnerships with other broadcasters
Over the past year, Kiwi audiences have been blessed with a plethora of options for watching sport, live and free.
While for so long sport has been largely behind Sky’s paywall, TVNZ and Warner Bros. Discovery’s move into sports broadcasting has resulted in more competition - which has ultimately benefited consumers.
This year alone, fans have been able to watch free of charge an entire home summer of cricket, as well as weekly NRL and Super Rugby matches.
Sky and TVNZ have also joined in a free-to-air partnership to screen the ANZ Premiership over the winter months.
However, as the media industry faces significant challenges at all levels, the reality of broadcasting sport can’t be ignored, and the necessity for pay TV products will always remain if codes are to survive, a point outlined by Minister for Sport Chris Bishop.
“I love free-to-air sport, particularly cricket,” Bishop told the Herald. “But ‘free-to-air’ is a misnomer.
“Someone pays. The reality is that commercial rights play a very significant role in making sure sport happens, in New Zealand and around the world.
“These are ultimately commercial decisions for sporting bodies.”
And with that on board, the health of the media industry overall could play a significant role in just how much free sport can be seen in future.
In spite of that, though, New Zealand’s major players do not plan on taking a backward step any time soon.
Here’s how each of them stack up:
Sky has long been the powerhouse of live sport in New Zealand. Professional sport would not be what it is were it not for the role of companies like Sky, who for a long time was the sole player in the market as a means of directly funding codes.
While traditional free-to-air content will see a company offset costs through advertising, Sky’s most important source of revenue comes through subscriptions. And at a time when the entire media industry is suffering from a lack of advertising dollars, Sky’s subscribers are its most important asset.
That symbiotic relationship with its customers will always be at the centre of Sky’s sports offering.
However, since late 2023, Sky has shown a willingness to add another string to its bow.
Establishing Sky Open as a channel in place of what was once Prime gives Sky the ability to allow a consistent free-to-air offering, and in a sense tease potential customers to come on board.
“We spend an enormous amount on content,” Sky chief media and data officer Lauren Quaintance told the Herald. “We spent $384 million including production costs on content in the last financial year.
“We’re keen to maximise the revenue benefit of that, and free-to-air helps us to do it.
“We want to provide content to New Zealanders in a variety of ways and meet their needs. We have the aim of being Aotearoa New Zealand’s most engaging and essential media company.
“By putting an unprecedented amount of sport free-to-air, which is what we’ve currently done, we’re able to monetise that by advertising and really fulfil that promise of more sport to New Zealanders, whilst also sampling some of the support sports and driving people to our pay products at the same time.”
That $384m spend comes against Sky’s figures from the second half of 2023, where interim results showed revenue of $392m, a 4 per cent increase - even if its subscriber number fell by 3 per cent.
Already this season, Sky Open offers one NRL game and one Super Rugby Pacific game free-to-air on Fridays and Saturdays respectively. While that might be enough for some fans who don’t want to commit, Sky still ensures there is plenty more for those who do.
While Sky Open will offer 27 free NRL matches this season, there will be 213 behind its paywall. The same can be said for Super Rugby Pacific, with 19 matches free and 91 for paying customers.
At the end of March, Sky announced in partnership with TVNZ that the ANZ Premiership netball competition will be back on free-to-air television. That will see 15 games for free and 45 on Sky.
In doing that, the balance between what is free and what requires payment will be crucial for Sky.
“It’s early days in terms of these new initiatives, it’s something we’re testing. There is a balance to be struck,” added Quaintance.
“You can see that there is an opportunity there to promote our paid products to people that are really passionate about these sports and want to see more of them, and we are actively doing that on the channel.
“There is an opportunity there to use the free-to-air channel as a funnel to our paid products.”
There’s still plenty more to come this year too.
In terms of the sporting events that unite New Zealand as a nation, the All Blacks’ Rugby World Cup final defeat to South Africa was free-to-air on Sky Open.
What’s more, Kiwis will have the option of free-to-air coverage of this year’s Olympic Games in Paris, with significantly more available on paid channels.
And while Sky in the past has been perceived to not make full use of digital services, the changing market has seen it take steps to innovate.
This year, the Super Rugby Aupiki final and select games of the New Zealand National Basketball League (NBL) will be broadcast on social media giant TikTok. While traditional audiences might not see a single frame of a live match on TikTok, future ones certainly will.
That, on top of other content on social media and YouTube, shows Sky is willing to come to the table in the hunt to shore up its future.
However, as is the case with free-to-air television, Sky will still go to lengths not to undercut its primary source of income.
“Sky at its core is a subscription business,” Quaintance continued. “Ultimately, for a large number of sports, they do rely on that subscription revenue that they generate.
“In certain cases, it’s unlikely to be possible. Unless we can put a paywall on TikTok, we’re not going to generate the subscription revenue that actually supports our business, but also supports the sporting codes.”
Since 1990, Sky has largely been unchallenged as a service. Spark Sport’s exit from the New Zealand market in late 2022 saw Sky capitalise on its position, as it has every right to do, even if it meant a price raise for subscribers.
But in terms of free-to-air sport, Sky is more than willing to leverage its own content and position as a means of bringing new customers to the table.
“We’re excited about the future of free-to-air sport,” said Quaintance. “You can see this year, we’ve leaned into free-to-air sport. We are making an unprecedented amount available to all New Zealanders.
“That aligns with our broader strategic objectives to meet people where they are, and to provide content to them in ways that work for them.
“We see ourselves as a true partner of many sports. We’re excited to continue to deliver awesome content for all New Zealanders in ways that work for them.”
Whether or not that means we’ll see the Olympics or an All Blacks test on TikTok remains to be seen.
In its own words, no one has greater reach than TVNZ as a free-to-air player.
“We want to be in there because it generates audience results like no other piece of content can,” said Melodie Robinson, TVNZ’s general manager of sport and events.
“We say that we are New Zealand’s leading free-to-air sports broadcaster, giving access to Kiwis around sport that they love. Anyone who’s involved in our productions is really proud of the fact we can be involved in inspiring the next generation of athletes.
“I think we’ve got, as New Zealand’s main broadcaster, a really fantastic opportunity to make sure those sports are accessible for kids and those who can’t afford to pay.”
Last summer marked the return of TVNZ as the biggest present challenger to Sky’s dominance of the free-to-air sports market. The collapse of Spark Sport saw TVNZ acquire the rights to broadcast international and domestic cricket through until the end of the 2026 season, be it via its TVNZ 1 and Duke channels, or its TVNZ+ online streaming service, and the results speak for themselves.
The men’s summer saw a massive 2.54 million people tune into cricket coverage across TVNZ 1 and Duke, be it international or domestic. On top of that, nearly half a million more did the same across TVNZ+.
That number has the potential to keep growing, as the White Ferns concluded the 2023/24 season against England.
The only question around TVNZ is its long-term viability as a local media player.
Despite its dominant position as the nation’s state broadcaster, TVNZ is not immune to the challenges affecting every major player around the globe.
Job cuts to Fair Go and Sunday as part of a wider company restructure show the financial health of TVNZ is far from secure, going as far as to axe two of its premier shows to make ends meet.
Robinson concedes TVNZ can’t compete with Sky financially, but that doesn’t necessarily limit what the company is capable of doing.
At the end of March, TVNZ announced in conjunction with Sky that netball would return to Kiwi screens with one free ANZ Premiership match per week, in an arrangement that both companies - as well as Netball New Zealand - are happy with.
Aside from that, TVNZ has also partnered with Hockey New Zealand and New Zealand Football as a means of providing coverage to national sports.
“We have to be selective in what we’re acquiring. Sky fills a really good role with buying up those rights, and propping up the professional sports industry. Whereas we have to select sports that Kiwis care about, that bring in mass audiences, or bring in young male audiences, particularly on TVNZ+.
“We give New Zealand sports rights holders another option so that they don’t just have one option - which is Sky.
“Our partnering isn’t just about partnering with Sky, we’re open to partnering with sports rights-holders as well.”
Away from the traditional broadcast TV medium, TVNZ has also been astute in picking up content as a means of building up TVNZ+.
The United Rugby Championship and Japan’s Rugby League One (the current home of All Blacks stars Ardie Savea, Beauden Barrett and Sam Cane) are both available exclusively to Kiwi audiences online, and on demand.
That approach, is a sign of what’s to come from TVNZ as New Zealand moves into the future of media.
“Every broadcaster in the world is trying to solve that problem,” adds Robinson. “Most of us are wanting to go digital because of expensive infrastructure costs of playout.
“Our strategy is digital first. We’re making a massive development into our IP [internal player] platform, and we will be ambitious about transferring as many people as possible on to TVNZ+.
“We are currently looking at other ideas outside our business model because we’re under the pump with advertising revenue.
“If we’re going to make a play with another big sport property, we’d have to have a partnership, or a different way of making money - for instance pay-per-view.
“Right now, it’s a balancing act. In the future, if we come up with an amazing partnership or money-generating business model, potentially we can go for something else.”
Media by nature is a competitive industry, and sports rights are included in that.
All major players know they’ll struggle to compete with Sky. But as Sky moves further into the free-to-air space through Sky Open, TVNZ know sexactly what its strength is - a brand it’s cultivated since the 1960s.
“It’s great for the New Zealand public that they can access Super Rugby or a Warriors game in the weekend. I think that’s amazing. But nothing beats TVNZ’s reach. Sky Open just doesn’t reach as many Kiwis.
“We know that if we do have a sport or live event on our platforms, it will reach more people.”
In a way, TVNZ couldn’t ask for someone who understands the need for free-to-air sport better than Robinson.
As a former Black Fern, Robinson played rugby in an age when New Zealand’s media gave little coverage to women’s sport.
She says the social responsibility of providing free-to-air sports is important for TVNZ.
“Free-to-air is important for the New Zealand ecosystem. We have to make sure that free-to-air is available and accessible for everybody.
“Free-to-air has to survive, which is why we are transferring everything to digital and really looking at our costs.
“I’m very passionate about free-to-air for all New Zealanders. When I was a kid, I watched the Olympics on TV1 and wanted to be an athlete.
“Personally, it’s very important for this ecosystem.”
While taking the closure of Newshub into account, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) perhaps has the biggest potential as a home for free-to-air sport as we head further into the digital age.
Given its presence in the US, Europe, Asia, Australia and now New Zealand, WBD is a global player on a scale we haven’t seen in Aotearoa before.
The company has been upfront about how it views the New Zealand media landscape: It regards streaming services like Netflix as its biggest competitor, ahead of Sky or TVNZ.
What’s more, the impending arrival of WBD’s streaming service Max will also have an impact on New Zealand when it launches at the end of this year.
When Newshub staff were told of their closure in February, Asia-Pacific leader James Gibbons and New Zealand executive Glen Kyne emphasised local content is still a sought-after commodity for WBD.
And while there will be scaled-back production in the short term, live sport is a huge opportunity for WBD to retain a local presence.
Similar to TVNZ, though, the advertising market will have a significant say on what the future will look like in the short and mid term.
At present, the rights for the 2024 America’s Cup are yet to be secured by any New Zealand player, and WBD could significantly emphasise its commitment to a Kiwi audience - should they manage a deal.
Outside of major events, WBD wants to assert itself as a home for niche sports with cult followings, in order to set itself apart from the approach of TVNZ and Sky, and even welcomes the competition.
“There’s enough room for us all to play together. It’s just that we can’t all have the same strategy,” said senior director of content Juliet Peterson.
“We are a key player. We obviously have a fairly small market - the whole global entertainment and sport market is fragmenting massively.
“Sport is an important part of our content strategy moving forward.”
WBD wants to make the most of those committed fan bases.
Already, WBD has shown it’s prepared to be opportunistic for sports rights, and make the use of its ThreeNow platform. However, that will not take away from Three as a linear TV channel.
SailGP, Nascar and MotoGP have a home on the platform, while the Black Caps’ away test series in Bangladesh last year was acquired at the last minute and shown live exclusively online.
“We’ve experimented in the last couple of years, and come into a time now where we’ve got more of a clear idea about what we’re doing moving forward,” Peterson continued.
“What we’re looking to do is really target the very passionate, dedicated viewers in particular sports on an ongoing basis. That’s one pillar of our strategy.
“On top of that, we’ll look at events as well, often they are quite opportunistic.
“I would cite the cricket - the fastest sports deal in history. Friday night, we heard from our colleagues, it was still available. We had it on platform by Tuesday.
“It was incredibly successful. We saw that we had five times as many sign-ups to ThreeNow, even with the short notice period.”
Like TVNZ, WBD has worked as a free-to-air partner alongside Sky.
In 2021, the two parties combined to screen State of Origin game one free-to-air, as a hope of luring potential customers to Sky for games two and three.
Both organisations are happy with the results of that partnership, even if Sky Open now gives an in-house alternative to use instead.
By no means, though, is that relationship soured.
“We exist in complementary spaces. Does it mean we won’t work with Sky again? Absolutely not.
“The reality is kudos to Sky for putting a lot of effort into Sky Open. I think we still have a significantly greater reach, that will continue.
“We also have a very high-functioning scale BVOD [broadcast video on demand] platform in ThreeNow.
“That’s incredibly important, particularly when it comes to rights holders who’re looking for monetising what they have and increasing their reach.”
As for the future? WBD makes no bones of the fact that it is here to stay, but will do things its way up against our two traditional players.
“Never say never is what I would say our future intentions are. We are an incredibly agile organisation who will look at any opportunity that comes our way.
“We talk regularly to all the key sporting rights holders, the big sporting bodies. We will absolutely look at any opportunity to work with others, or to do things by ourselves where it makes sense.”
As the publisher of the Herald, NZME’s radio arm has long been an outlet for sports fans wanting free coverage.
That being said, the ability to broadcast video live is a step the company hasn’t needed to take - yet.
“NZME is proud of the vast range of sports coverage we offer across our platforms,” said Carolyn Luey, NZME’s chief digital and publishing officer.
“As the largest multi-media company in New Zealand, we are well advanced in our digital transformation efforts and we continue to look at opportunities to expand our offering, provided it makes commercial sense and will deliver value for our shareholders.”
With the face of media in Aotearoa changing drastically by the year, NZME is perhaps the best-placed of all organisations to move into the future.
Unlike with Sky, TVNZ and WBD, any offering from NZME would solely be in the digital space, and likely look to capitalise on the massive audience the Herald commands.
For now, partnerships loom as the easiest way for NZME to move into that space.
In 2020, Sky and NZME combined to bring the newly launched Sky Sport News and rugby magazine show The Breakdown across its digital and radio platforms.
Covid-19 brought the end of that when Sky Sport News closed, while The Breakdown has found a healthy niche on YouTube after it airs on Sunday nights.
How NZME wants to move forward is still to be seen, but the company is still an exciting player to watch in this space.
While not a traditional player in the free-to-air sports market, Stuff has taken steps to show its intent in the digital age.
Last year saw the company strike a partnership with Sky that allowed the news site to stream select Rugby World Cup and Women’s Fifa World Cup matches for free online.
Unlike the main TV players, Stuff is not primarily a broadcaster - it’s a news service, which means it has different needs that sports rights might not satisfy.
“Stuff is hugely proud of the live sport partnerships we have delivered over the past 18 months,” digital managing director Nadia Tolich told the Herald.
“Our audiences love this content and huge numbers are watching it on their phones. We are always looking for opportunities to innovate and deliver Kiwis the news, content and events they love.”
This week, reports emerged that Stuff were in contention to step in and potentially put an option on the table to help save Newshub in some form.
It would be unfair on either party to speculate on what that might look like, but take it as a sign of intent that Stuff aren’t complacent over their place as a digital media leader, and will look to grow where possible.
And in terms of sport, Tolich adds Stuff is far from done in terms of providing a platform for free-to-air sports content.
“Stuff is an innovator. We proudly follow no one so the opportunities in sport are endless.”
Alex Powell is an online sports editor for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016 and previously worked for both Newshub and 1News.
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