In the final part of our series on the live sport ambitions of Amazon, Apple, Netflix and others, we look at Big Tech’s potential impact on Sky TV; No excuses for the Warriors next year; And another ex-All Blacks captain nominates for the NZR board. All in today’s
TV sports rights: Sky TV in fight to stay ahead of Big Tech streamers – Sports Insider
Israel Adesanya, Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, Taine Randell and Hiroki Sakai. Photo / Getty Images, Photosport
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After a pivot to television lounge rooms, at one stage it achieved a phenomenal penetration rate of having its decoder box in more than one in four Kiwi households.
It was a feat other subscription businesses around the world could only look upon with astonishment and envy, and led to Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited buying a majority stake in Sky in 2005 (he sold it nine years later).
The challenges have stacked up for Sky in the past 10 years though.
There was the knockback from the Commerce Commission on a merger with Vodafone, and also national telco Spark’s attempt to muscle in on live sport, which resulted in it snatching the 2019 Rugby World Cup and international home cricket from Sky.
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It has also had to navigate the most significant technology transition in sports broadcasting in decades – the move to streaming, and with it a more challenged revenue model in terms of margins.
Sky Sport has largely weathered that collective storm well, although not without a fair battering.
Spark Sport has been seen off and as a result, the high rights fees Sky was paying out to sports organisations are now being reined in.
It’s not exactly all sunshine and roses ahead but Sky Sport has had ample reason to feel optimistic about the future.
But now the Big Tech horsemen have come charging over the sporting content hill.
Over the past fortnight, Sports Insider has analysed the sporting strategies of the top five Big Tech players generally agreed to be leading the chase for sport’s riches – Apple, Amazon, Netflix, YouTube and TikTok.
But what of their likely impact on Sky?
Can the comparatively tiny Kiwi broadcaster stand up to the might of Jeff Bezos-owned companies like Amazon or juggernauts like the Tim Cook-led Apple, as Big Tech players focus more and more on live sport?
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Sky’s aggregation and convenience factors will keep it in the race.
In the view of Sports Insider, Sky Sport is in good shape to fend off Big Tech cutting its lunch for a variety of reasons.
They include:
- Sky’s streaming transition is well advanced and it’s bringing its rights fees costs under control after years of being exploited by sports bodies using Spark as a stalking horse.
- The live sports offerings of Amazon, Apple, Netflix and company are too “internationalised” (or in Netflix’s case, just simply too American-centric) to really appeal to the taste of dedicated Kiwi sports fans. Therefore the Big Tech platforms will remain a second choice for most.
- In a tight economy, Sky benefits from aggregating the sports New Zealanders care most about in one place, increasingly Sky Sport Now. That convenience factor of not having to jump platforms, incurring more cost, is one of its greatest assets. In a tight economy, that matters.
Breaking this down further, it is this dual benefit of “dedicated fan” and aggregation benefits that are likely to convince most of Sky’s current sports subscribers away from cutting the cord.
As an aside, nobody should be shedding any tears over bleating from sports rights-holders about Sky’s sharpened pencil.
Most were more than happy to exploit Spark Sport’s arrival but the battle ultimately ended up being detrimental to Kiwi sports fans, who had to fork out for two platforms and increased subscriber fees – not that rights-holders seemed to care.
Clawing back rights fees should help Sky make overdue investments into live sports production, including more aerial camera innovations, returning match commentators to the live venue rather than its Mt Wellington studios and boosting documentary offerings.
The live sports strategy employed by Netflix and Amazon seems unlikely to have a big impact on Sky, although a strong push by Netflix into populist combat sport could erode the New Zealand broadcaster’s pay-per-view business.
In the past, Sky might have been in the hunt for the New Zealand rights to something like this month’s Jake Paul-Mike Tyson “exhibition” fight.
But Netflix now wants worldwide exclusive rights to such global eye-gathering bouts.
Given the cash the world’s biggest subscription streaming service gathers, Netflix can afford to offer such attractions free to existing customers. They then become a valuable retention strategy (Netflix has an industry-leading churn rate of only 2%).
Netflix recently completed a US$5 billion ($8.5b), 10-year deal with World Wrestling Entertainment to become the exclusive home of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) content from January 1, 2025.
WWE is owned by TKO Holdings, which also owns the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and is currently in discussions with Netflix about a similar move.
Should the UFC join big wrestling events like WrestleMania and SummerSlam and popular weekly shows like Monday Night RAW and SmackDown exclusively on Netflix, Sky will have little to draw the attention of combat sports fans.
In terms of the UFC, strong Kiwi representation across the octagon’s ranks, including Israel Adesanya, Dan Hooker, Kai Kara-France and Carlos Ulberg, has only been increasing, so no UFC would hurt Sky.
However, the network might still be able to persuade UFC bosses to allow geo-blocked coverage in New Zealand, meaning that if you are not a Netflix subscriber, you could still buy the fight day as a one-off on Sky.
‘Kind draw’ means no excuses for Warriors
The NRL’s draw for next season is out and although we have known for some time that the Warriors will be going to the Las Vegas opening weekend to take on reigning premiers the Penrith Panthers, the rest of the fixture list was always going to be important.
In that respect, Andrew Webster and the Warriors have seemingly come up trumps (can we continue to use that descriptor anymore in light of Donald?).
So much so that erstwhile Aussie media outlet, the Sydney Morning Herald, claim the Auckland-based outfit have the second-best draw of any of the 17 men’s team in 2025 (not withstanding the Warriors travel further than any other franchise).
The SMH rated the Warriors just ahead of the Canberra Raiders as having the kindest draw (the outlet rated South Sydney and the Melbourne Storm as having the toughest).
“Based on the premiership odds of their rivals, the Warriors may have the easiest schedule in the league,” wrote the SMH’s experts.
“Of the teams they play twice, only the Knights and Sea Eagles played finals football last season, while several others are expected to go backwards next year. While the New Zealanders will once again endure the most travel of any NRL club, they at least won’t have any five-day turnarounds next season.”
Which means excuses should be thin on the ground if the Warriors don’t bounce back as finals contenders next season.
Taine Randell not only ex-All Blacks captain seeking NZR directorship
New Zealand Rugby’s appointments panel has been holding interviews this week, with short-listed candidates seeking director roles on a new board.
Final interviews are scheduled for early next month, followed by a new board being revealed to the public by December 18 and taking office on February 1 next year.
Already speculation that New Zealand Rugby’s (NZR) tendency to leak more than the Titanic might scare away meritworthy contenders has been vindicated. The Herald revealed earlier this month that current International Cricket Council chair Greg Barclay and former All Blacks captain Taine Randell are among those to put their names forward.
Both are worthy candidates but should have reasonably expected their bids to remain confidential for now. How many others knew that was coming and didn’t trust the process, thereby ruling themselves out?
The short-list is interesting for who is on it and who isn’t.
The good news is that only a handful of the seven current directors who put their hand up to go around again made the cut.
But the most intriguing element is that Randell isn’t the only ex-All Blacks skipper to put his name forward. Watch this space in terms of a big, big name.
The appointments panel faces a difficult challenge in nominating its inaugural board because it requires a mix of four females, single representatives with Māori and Pasifika background and three former provincial directors across nine available slots.
To put it bluntly, the criteria make it very difficult for somebody like Barclay, who should be a no-brainer appointment, given his background. The Auckland-based Barclay is a 50-plus Pākehā male and earned his sports administration stripes in cricket.
NZR has made this overdue governance overhaul hard enough as it is without adding a clumsy and restrictive selection criteria.
Cricket Australia’s $2 million-a-day hit in shortened tests
Cricket Australia will be sweating on its national team being a lot more competitive than shown in the Perth surrender to India in the first of a historic five-test home series this summer.
Cricket Australia (CA) may even be able to cop a series loss to the Indians but executives are praying the bulk of the tests go the full five days.
Why?
Because if India (or the Australians for that matter) keep winning tests inside four days, as happened in Perth, CA faces a massive multimillion-dollar hit.
It’s not just the loss of ticketing income when tests don’t run the full length but also hospitality, membership, marketing and food and beverage revenues.
Complicating the situation is CA’s seemingly frosty relationship with its free-to-air broadcast rights holder Seven, which has sold out ad spots at premium rates for the eagerly awaited series with the Indians. No cricket almost certainly means refunds for advertisers.
One CA senior official told Australian media that lost revenue could amount to about A$2 million ($2.2m) a day in the event of more early finishes.
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