The deal
Australian commercial broadcaster Nine Entertainment has struck a deal with rival sports broadcaster Optus for the exclusive rights to English soccer’s elite Premier League domestic competition and the FA Cup knockout tournament.
Starting with the upcoming 2025-26 campaign, Premier league coverage in Australia will be exclusively consolidated on Nine’s paid OTT service Stan Sport.
Nine has also, through the deal, received several other soccer rights held by Optus, including the upcoming UEFA Women’s European Championships, which begins on July 3.
Optus chief executive Stephen Rue spoke on the deal, saying: “One of our key priorities was to find a home for Optus Sport content which would take the game forward and enable all Optus Sport subscribers to continue to receive uninterrupted access to all their favorite football action.”
Why it matters
In effectively subsidizing Nine Entertainment’s takeover of the Premier League rights for Australia, Optus is shaking up the entirety of the Australian sports broadcast industry, which is already rapidly changing after global OTT service DAZN’s acquisition of pay-TV heavyweight Foxtel.
Optus has exited the sports media market altogether, evidenced by its handover of other non-Premier League soccer rights, with existing Optus Sports customers being offered discounted Stan Sports entry as the former service is shuttered.
Around 700,000 people were subscribed to Optus Sport, of which around half were not also Stan Sport subscribers, per Nine itself.
GlobalData senior media analyst Costanza Barrai commented on the announcement, suggesting that Optus owner Singtel is looking to consolidate around its core telecoms business.
Barrai said: “The English Premier League deal between Optus and Nine Entertainment marks a shift in strategy for both parties involved. Optus, which has held exclusive EPL rights since 2016, appears to be distancing itself from sports broadcasting, especially as its parent company, Singtel, reportedly seeks to divest from the complexities and costs associated with broadcast commitments such as sports.
“The move would allow the telecom conglomerate to redirect investment and resources to strengthen its core offering (such as mobile or internet) instead.
Optus’ portfolio is mostly comprised of soccer rights, with the English Premier League coverage standing as its core offering.
By comparison, Stan Sports’ rights portfolio is more diversified, including rugby union’s English Premiership, southern hemisphere Rugby Championship, and SVNS, tennis’ Davis Cup, and motor racing’s Formula E, among other properties, alongside soccer’s UEFA Champions League
“On the other side of the coin,” Barrai continued, this deal also marks a major sea change for Nine, which is now seemingly going all-in on pushing its Stan Sport OTT service as a domestic competitor against the growing power of multinational services such as Prime Video and Netflix.
“Nine and its streaming service, Stan, [are] competing against the likes of the Netflix and Amazon of the world now. We're seeing sports on on-demand platforms continuing to grow, with global streamers recently betting aggressively on live events to address their issues of subscription churn.
“GlobalData's Opportunities in Media Survey finds that over 70% of respondents have cancelled a streaming service, with the top reasons being cost, subscription stacking, and content quality.
“Amazon Prime Video subscriptions in Australia have seen a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 36% in the past 4 years, and GlobalData forecasts the streamer to overtake Netflix to become the country's leading streamer by 2028.
“Our consumer survey indicates Amazon's subscribers are also the least likely to plan to cancel their membership, indicating service bundling, joint with sports investment, increases stickiness. However, local service Stan is not too far behind, almost matching Disney Plus's subscriber numbers.”
Nine’s sports push over the past year, which has seen it pick up rights as varied as Rugby Australia domestic games, the Rugby World Cup, World Athletics Championships, PFL mixed martial arts action, and more, could be the key to ensuring viewers pay and stay.
Squaring up against domestic rivals as well as international players, however, is easier said than done, and with the sheer amount of media rights investment Nine has made, it will need more separation from other local players to consolidate national viewership on the Stan platform.
Barrai concluded: “The newest entry which disrupted the [Australian streaming] space has been sport-focused subscription service DAZN, through the acquisition of Foxtel.
“Whereas streaming service Optus Sport was growing at a steady pace, Foxtel Now has been struggling, seeing a -15% CAGR decline since 2020. It will be interesting to see how the situation plays out as DAZN-Foxtel will compete more closely in scale and content offering to Stan.
“Investment into high-value and long-term deals will further bolster Stan's competitive edge as its main rivals become no longer just local on-demand platforms, but media giants including DAZN, Netflix and Amazon.”
The details
Nine Entertainment will pay Optus A$60 million (US$39.3 million) per year for the exclusive rights to all English Premier League games and the FA Cup for the next three seasons.
This will make up 60% of the overall rights fee, with Optus set to pay the remaining A$40 million out of its annual rights fee for the competition.
Nine will reportedly pay Optus an initial A$20 million fee for the rights.
Through the deal, Nine also takes on other soccer rights held by Optus, namely the Japanese J.League top flight, the US’s National Women’s Soccer League, and the upcoming UEFA Women’s European Championships, which will begin on July 3.
