Rugby world, we have a problem. A frustrating, counter-productive problem called Messy Television Rights.
This first came to my attention during my holiday to Australia a few weeks ago. Having lived there before, I am familiar with the way they screen their sports events and it is quite different to what I am used to in my homeland of South Africa. For example, one channel has the rights to Australian Cricket, another channel has the rights to Australian Rugby Union and the cable network, Foxtel, screens competitions such as Super Rugby. As I said, I was unused to this, but when in Rome you do as the Romans do, and so I obtained Foxtel so I could keep up with all the rugby matches.
Fast forward to my recent trip and I found out that not much has changed in terms of how sports are viewed Down Under. But this time there was a twist. A Setanta twist.
In Australia, Setanta has the rights to New Zealand – England fixtures in England and New Zealand – Wales fixtures in Wales. What this means is that if you want to watch these specific matches, you need to take out an additional subscription to get the Setanta channel on Foxtel. Obviously, no sane person is going to pay extra money for a channel each month they only really need in order to view two matches in November – when these fixtures are usually played.
Back in South Africa, I started noticing the absence of French Top 14 matches on the Supersport schedule. Being an avid fan, I made a few enquiries regarding this and after receiving a couple of mixed responses, it was eventually confirmed that Supersport had not secured the rights to the Top 14 because they had not concluded acceptable commercial terms in a competitive market.
Speaking with a good friend in France, I then found out that Canal+ – the usual carrier for the Top 14 – had in fact sold their rights to a Qatari company and that my friend now had to acquire an additional subscription so that they wouldn’t miss any of the matches. Without speculating further, I wondered if this had been part of the acceptable commercial terms Supersport had not been able to conclude to secure the rights.
Whatever the real reason I now have two options – either acquire an additional subscription for one competition above what I am already paying for or go without a rugby competition I have grown to love. Either option right now is not palatable and it has left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Rugby, while not as big as football, commands a reasonable sized global audience and these conflicting and contentious TV rights deals have no place in the sport. It is damaging in terms of growing the rugby watching audience and also disillusions the current viewer, such as myself and my friends in Australia who, in my opinion, have really caught the short end of the stick.
How does our international rugby body, now known as World Rugby, expect to grow their viewership when access to the matches – high profile matches at that – are not easily accessible? While money is always going to dictate everything, the World Rugby body would do well to remember that the fans are ultimately the ones who are going to make or break their viewership numbers. No fans, no interest. No interest, no bidding wars for the rights to screen the matches. And then sponsorship will be affected, too. It’s simple economics.
Besides money what other reason could there be for such a complicated mess of access to the games? Important to note, this does not happen in soccer – and as my friend, Mary, in France very rightly put it ‘if they could show the Kazakhstan football league division 15 here, they would!’ It’s a valid point. It is completely unreasonable and ridiculous to expect fans to pay double to watch the matches they want.
If rugby is to compete for a viewership to rival football, one thing that has to happen is having access to the top matches –at the very least. Do not stifle growth and interest in the sport by putting money first and making a mess of the TV rights. It is counterproductive and unfair. Hopefully, 2015 brings with it some sense and clarity on these issues.
On that note, Season’s Greetings to all of you! Wishing you prosperous and safe holidays and 2015 bringing us another blockbuster year of great rugby action!
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