Jeff Wilson (L) and the rest of the Sky Sport rugby commentary team may not be pleased with being left at home. Photo / Photosport
Jeff Wilson (L) and the rest of the Sky Sport rugby commentary team may not be pleased with being left at home. Photo / Photosport
Exclusive: Sky TV are set to reveal a big deal for upcoming Rugby World Cups, but their commentary team looks set to be left at home later this year. Gregor Paul reports.
Sky TV is expected to next week be confirmed as having won the broadcast rights to the nextfour Rugby World Cups, in a deal that will also see it offload RugbyPass and potentially look to work with both TVNZ and Warner Bros Discovery as free to air partners.
The pay-TV operator confirmed in July that it was in advanced discussions with World Rugby about a "wide-ranging rights" deal that sources say will include the 2023 and 2027 World Cups as well as the 2025 and 2029 tournaments.
The deal has now been signed off and an announcement is expected within days.
But while securing the World Cup rights will confirm Sky's position as the dominant rugby broadcaster in New Zealand, the Herald also understands that it is unlikely to send a commentary and analysis team to cover the All Blacks tour to Japan and the UK.
The decision, should it be confirmed, to not send a commentary team – that most likely would have been veteran commentator Grant Nisbett with former All Blacks Jeff Wilson and Justin Marshall – is thought to be related to a wider series of cost cuts which include staff no longer being granted free subscriptions to Sky and changes to long-service leave entitlements.
The All Blacks will be playing Japan in Tokyo before heading to the UK for tests against Wales, Scotland and England – all of which Sky has the rights to - but will likely now be commentating from a studio in New Zealand rather than being at the venues.
Jeff Wilson (L) and the rest of the Sky Sport rugby commentary team may not be pleased with being left at home. Photo / Photosport
Opting not to put an editorial team on the ground is unlikely to please New Zealand Rugby, who will be concerned that the compromised production values don't reflect the value of their content or suggest Sky is as heavily invested in the All Blacks as the national body, which is a shareholder in Sky, feels it should be.
A spokesperson for Sky said that the company has not yet confirmed its plans for the end of year tour.
However, they did also say: "We have noted previously that we did some off-tube commentary last year - due to Covid restrictions and our team's inability to travel - without affecting the customer experience. But we're still working through the options for the EOYT tour and will obviously be focused on delivering the best viewing experience for our customers."
While the World Cup rights deal will entitle Sky TV to show all games live, there may yet be an opportunity for New Zealand's heavyweight terrestrial channels to buy their way into being a free-to-air partner.
World Rugby makes it a mandatory requirement for all territories to show specific games - such as the opening match, semifinals, bronze final and final - on a free to air channel and while Sky has the option of using Prime – which it owns - as its non-paywalled partner, it is believed it may also explore the option of selling rights to TVNZ and/or TV3, which is owned by Warner Bros Discovery.
Selling additional free-to-air content would allow Sky to offset some of the cost of acquiring the rights.
It's not known what Sky has tabled to secure the World Cup contract, but Spark Sport is understood to have paid $12m to secure the rights to the 2019 and 2021 World Cups.
Spark Sport will televise the delayed 2021 Women's Rugby World which begins on Saturday. Photo / Photosport
It recuperated some of the cost by partnering with TVNZ as its free-to-air partner in 2019 and Warner Bros Discovery for the 2021 tournament. The government-owned channel is believed to have paid Spark about $1.5m to secure the mandatory live content in 2019.
Sky had hoped to conclude discussions earlier than it has, but there is thought to have been a degree of complexity in transferring ownership of RugbyPass to World Rugby as part of the agreement.
Sky acquired RugbyPass in 2019 for US$40m, which comprised of a US$10m upfront cash payment, the issuance of $20m of stock and a further $10m of cash payments based on performance goals being met.
RugbyPass was a streaming platform, but quickly came to be a content and statistics site under the ownership of Sky, which wrote down the goodwill of the business from $27.5m to $11m last year.
It's not known what price World Rugby has paid for RugbyPass, which is headquartered in Dublin but mostly run out of London, but it is understood that there was a cash element to the deal, and Sky didn't just trade it for the World Cup broadcast rights.
