The National Rugby League, Australia’s top rugby league competition, will receive its first rights fee instalment of A$30 million (€24.2 million/$31.2 million) under the terms of a new domestic broadcast deal with Nine after a deal was struck to restructure the commercial television network’s debts.
The league said that A$8 million of the A$30 million instalment would be distributed immediately to the NRL’s 16 clubs in equal A$500,000 payments by the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC), which brokered the rights deal with Nine on behalf of the league.
Clubs had previously expressed concerns that they would not receive their initial A$500,000 payments from the ARLC by October 31, as stipulated in Nine’s five-year rights deal, from 2013 to 2017.
“From the moment we signed the ‘heads of agreement’ with our broadcast partners we have been working towards providing this payment to the clubs,” ARLC interim chief executive Shane Mattiske said. “This [Wednesday] afternoon we reached a point where Nine was sufficiently comfortable to make the payment. This is just the start of the benefits the new broadcast rights deal will provide to the game’s stakeholders over the term of the agreement but it is a significant step for the clubs. At the same time it is a reflection of the positive partnership between the commission and Nine who have demonstrated that rugby league is a key priority for the network.”
Nine’s creditors agreed an A$3.3 billion debt-for-equity swap, with the deal handing control of the network to senior lenders led by US investment groups Apollo Global Management and Oaktree Capital, with second-tier lender Goldman Sachs securing a smaller stake.