Nine signed a A$60M-a-year broadcast rights deal with Tennis Australia this year.GETTY IMAGES
Nine CEO Hugh Marks is "confident" the network’s tennis coverage will "prove more financially responsible than buying cricket rights," which would have forced it to compete with pay-TV operator Foxtel for viewers and advertisers, according to John Stensholt of THE AUSTRALIAN. Marks said that his network’s new A$348.5M ($253.2M), six-year deal with Tennis Australia will allow Nine to invest in other programming throughout the year, "given that it was less costly than the cricket rights it previously held for 40 years." Marks: "I certainly think we will reduce our losses from sport. We were spending A$115M ($83.5M) on cricket and this will be A$50M ($36.3M) less than that. There's also less revenue but it means we've got the opportunity to spend money on other local programming throughout the rest of the year." Nine "shocked" the market by signing a A$60M ($43.6M)-a-year broadcast rights deal with Tennis Australia this year, which then resulted in Seven and Foxtel signing a record deal with Cricket Australia worth A$1.18B ($860M) over six years. Marks is "adamant" tennis, which will peak with two weeks of "high-rating action" from the Australian Open in Melbourne in late January, will "provide better value as Nine will have all rights exclusively rather than with cricket," for which Seven and Foxtel will broadcast test matches and Big Bash League games and Foxtel will have exclusive int'l limited-over matches (THE AUSTRALIAN, 8/13).
