23 hours Ago By David Richards
Disney who last week was axing TV shows in the USA including at ABC News, has their local boss wanting the entertainment group to have a crack at buying up local sport rights such as NRL despite the recent Las Vegas NRL double header only attracting sub 400,000 viewers in the USA. Disney which is popular because of their entertainment packages especially for teenagers and kids, also owns US sports entity ESPN, now Kylie Watson-Wheeler, The Walt Disney Company’s MD in Australia wants to try and have a crack at trying to secure the streaming rights to the local NRL which is currently held by Foxtel which was recently acquired by European sports streaming giant DAZN for $3.4 billion dollars.
Last year, Disney slashed thousands of jobs in an effort to reduce costs by $5.5 billion, with key layoffs affecting ESPN, Disney Parks, and corporate roles. Most recently, in September 2024, Disney eliminated 300 corporate positions, including legal and technology teams with ESPN and Disney management at the recent CES show in Las Vegas telling ChannelNews that “We don’t have an appetite for Australian sport”.
Disney’s claim to fame in the Australian sporting arena is that from March 26, the NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL and UFC Fight Night will appear on Disney+, and that the move which is not costing Disney anything as they own the rights in the USA, will not result in the cost of local subscriptions rising. In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, the local Disney CEO claimed that the company had spent three decades building US sports up in the domestic market and had invested in Australian basketball too. Ironically this is the same basketball league that has failed to deliver a viable audience for local broadcasters or streaming Companies, due to it primarily being a popular US sport.
“ESPN has a proven track record of investing in Australian sport, including through our multi-year commitment to the NBL. We are the unrivalled destination for basketball in the region,” Watson-Wheeler said. “We are open to investing more into Australian sport where it makes sense.
” ChannelNews understands that the battle could come down to a tussle between Nine Entertainment’s Stan combined with their free to air operation and Foxtel with the Seven Network also looking at whether they have the appetite and more so the capital to fund a bid for free to air TV rights and streaming via Seven +. Watson-Wheeler claims, “ESPN is a much-loved brand and its content is highly valued and sought after, particularly by younger males and those aged 18 to 44,” she said. “Attracting this demographic to Disney+ is incremental for us.
” The AFR Claims that Disney’s mooted appetite for more domestic sports comes days after the chief executive of the NRL, Andrew Abdo, described global streaming services as “apex predators” with free-to-air and pay TV in the sports sector. As for Abdo the problem is that if he cannot attract a foreign streaming Company to bid, the NRL may end up with a reduced return from local operators, as both Seven and Nine TV networks are struggling especially the Nine Entertainment network who are also committed to having to fund their Olympics coverage until 2032 and that includes both Summer and Winter games. Negotiations for the rights for the NRL after 2027 are expected to kick off within months with DAZN believed to be keen to also go after the rights to State Of Origin Games currently held by Nine Entertainment.
As for The Walt Disney Company and ESPN the Company is continuing its aggressive cost-cutting measures of their news broadcasters and ESPN which they kicked off last year. So far, they have laid off hundreds of employees after last year, laying off thousands of jobs in an effort to reduce costs by $5.5 billion, with key layoffs at ESPN.
As one observer said “Disney is popular with women and teenagers. It’s the babysitter and youth channel and neither of these audiences are die hard NRL fans”. The restructuring efforts come amid CEO Bob Iger’s push to make Disney’s streaming services profitable after several years of losses.
The streaming business, which includes Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, has seen a significant turnaround recently, achieving profitability for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2024, with a US $253 million operating profit, after years of losses. Despite steady growth at Disney+ the company faces mounting pressure to cut losses in its streaming business while navigating increased content costs, subscriber churn, and shifting consumer habits. “I doubt whether global management at Disney + has an appetite for a sport that has little recognition outside of Australia, New Zealand and the UK” a Nine executive said.
Disney has implemented multiple price hikes for Disney+ while simultaneously cutting acquisition and content costs in their organisation. Combined with their upcoming password-sharing crackdown, these moves indicate an urgent effort to maximize revenue per subscriber which could be a difficult task in Australia with NRL claim observers. ESPN, which has been in Australia for 30 years, will remain on Foxtel and Kayo, as well as Telstra’s Fetch TV, after its launch on Disney+.
“We greatly value our longstanding and continued relationships with our distribution partners,” Watson-Wheeler said. “They serve unique and important audiences.”.
