Brisbane 2032 Olympics to air on Nine as part of multimillion-dollar deal
Media giant Nine Entertainment Co will become the exclusive broadcaster of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games under a multimillion-dollar deal with the International Olympic Committee that will run for the next decade.
The company will also broadcast the Paris 2024 Olympics and Los Angeles 2028 Olympics across its television, radio and digital assets as part of the $315 million deal, which it confirmed to the ASX late on Wednesday. The deal includes the Winter Games and runs until 2032, ending a longstanding relationship between rival broadcaster Seven West Media and the IOC.
Nine chairman Peter Costello said the deal reflected the company’s long-term strategy to offer content across all platforms. Nine owns The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.
“I am delighted that Nine will be showing the Olympic Games across the Nine Network, 9Now and Stan from Paris 2024 through to the culmination in Brisbane in 2032,” Costello said.
Nine chief executive Mike Sneesby said the rights would allow the Olympic Games to be more accessible to parts of Australia.
“These rights complement our recently renewed partnerships with the NRL and Tennis Australia at a time when live sport continues to demonstrate its ability to drive strong growth in streaming audiences and strength in free-to-air TV consumption,” Sneesby said.
Seven and Nine were joint broadcasters of the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, which was the first to be televised in Australia. Since then, Seven has been the preeminent broadcaster, televising events in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.
The network briefly lost the rights from 2010 to 2014 to rival broadcasters Nine, Network Ten (now owned by Paramount) and Foxtel before signing a deal from 2016 to 2020.
Nine’s successful bid, revealed by this masthead in December, was significantly higher than Seven’s offer. Seven, which owns television and publishing assets, made its offer for the next round of rights in August 2021. Sources said the dollar figure offered was between $230 and $250 million. Seven told staff last year that it had pulled out of the race because the economics of a deal did not stack up.
Nine will pay $305 million in cash and $10 million in contra under the eight-year deal, which also includes the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics and the 2030 Winter Olympics. It includes the rights to all content, allowing Nine to broadcast footage across its radio, television, publishing and streaming assets.
Olympic Games are usually a loss-making event for a television network, but it is used as a springboard to promote other key programs on a television network. In 2017, Seven wrote down the value of the games by $70 million (the original deal was reported to be worth $200 million). And, despite it breaking audience records in 2021, the Tokyo 2020 Games still led to a $50 million loss for the network. Production costs about $150 million.
Seven wrote down the value of Olympics broadcast rights a number of times since after spending almost $200 million in 2014 to secure the rights to the 2016 Rio Games, the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the 2020 Tokyo Games.
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