Channel Nine has been left with an NBL-sized hole to fill as the station loses out in bid for the 2019 Australian Tennis Open, leaving the “Nine wide world of sports” without a single major sport to broadcast next summer.
Channel Nine is expected to take up their rights to the Australian Open in 2020, however has been left in limbo after rumors that Channel Seven would relinquish their rights to production next year were put to rest.
This leaves the channel in the unenviable position of being the only one of the big three commercial TV channels to not have access to a LIVE sport for the duration of the 2019 summer, with Channel Seven screening the popular Big Bash League cricket and Channel Ten the V8 Supercars.
Enter the NBL.
Never has there been a time where the NBL could so perfectly fill the desperate need of a Free-To-Air broadcaster, with the league spruiking a 43% culmative increase in TV ratings across SBS, ABC and Fox Sports last season; consistent increase in crowd numbers across the last three seasons, and the recent signing of NBA center Andrew Bogut to the Sydney Kings sure to draw interest.
The NBL has gone from the laughing stock of the Australian sporting landscape to it’s best kept secret, but with the signing of Andrew Bogut and the possibility of a second Melbourne team suiting up in the not-too-distant future, the league could be about to go gangbusters.
If ever there were a time for Channel Nine to experiment with the vastly improving league, it is now while they have a single season as a completely clean slate with which to work with.
Adding credibility to possible discussions between the league and Channel Nine will be former AFL Chief Executive Officer Andrew Demetriou, who helped broker lucrative TV deals for the AFL, and has been ensnared by NBL CEO Larry Kestleman for his negotiating prowess.
But perhaps even more important to a possible deal between the NBL and Channel Nine is the sweetener that the league will be undoubtedly using as leverage – the broadcast rights to the Australian Boomers vs. Team USA series to be played in Melbourne in August 2019.’
It is expected that Kestleman will package both the league and the series together in any prospective deal with any TV channel, as the NBL has the production rights to the series.
And the series is sure to be a ratings winner, considering that a pool game between the two teams at the 2016 Olympics was the most watched sporting event of the entire games in Australia and was streamed more than 450,000 times on the Olympic app.
A deal between Channel Nine wouldn’t be anything new – Nine was screening one game per week during the 2014/15 season – however what would be new for the league is the extent of the deal, which would have to be substantially bigger than the previous one given the league’s newfound bargaining power.
It is reasonable to expect that the NBL would look for Channel Nine to at least equal the deal that SBS provided, which showed two LIVE games a week last season.
A deal between Channel Nine and the NBL could be a match made in heaven for both parties, with the NBL providing an inexpensive gap-filler for a season, and Channel Nine providing the league reach into the living room of potentially millions of Australians.
Given the situation that both parties find themselves in it is reasonable to expect that talks between Channel Nine and the NBL would already be happening.
Dan Boyce is a die-hard Sydney Kings fan who grew up in Melbourne during the roaring 90's of Australian Basketball and spent far too much time collecting Futera NBL Basketball cards.
