Vodafone announced as new sponsor for New Zealand Rugby

Kieran Read of the All Blacks leads the haka during the Rugby Championship match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the South Africa in 2016. Photo / Phil Walter.

Vodafone joining forces with the All Blacks should make Sky Television nervous.

The telco has inked a four-year agreement with New Zealand Rugby where it will be an official sponsor of the national team and also power a new All Blacks app.

The app, due to launch during next months's Lions tour, will give fans who go to live games the ability to watch tries, highlights and alternative live footage from different camera angles.

It's becoming increasingly popular for sporting organisations to launch their own smartphone apps - Rio Olympics developed one to stream highlights during last year's games, as did the Americas Cup organisers in San Francisco.

It's a smart move from New Zealand Rugby and shows it is making an effort to take care of fans who stump up for test-match tickets.

The deal should also be good for Vodafone, aligning the mobile and broadband provider with one of New Zealand's most powerful brands.

The new app will no doubt also consume a fair whack of mobile data, which will benefit both Vodafone and its competitors.

However, the four-year Vodafone agreement isn't such good news for the Sky.

While the pay-TV provider has the broadcast rights for test rugby tied up until 2020, closer ties between New Zealand Rugby and a telco should ring some alarm bells.

That's because by the time those rights expire, close to 75 per cent of the country will be able to access fibre internet that's easily quick enough to stream live sports. A rights-holder like New Zealand Rugby doesn't need to partner with a traditional broadcaster to reach fans and could instead work with a telco to distribute it directly to homes and pubs across big parts of the country.

New Zealand Rugby would need to weigh up whether the cost of doing so - including the loss of guaranteed revenue in what Sky pays for broadcast rights - is worth it.

Sky also has production expertise and equipment that New Zealand Rugby would need to bring in-house or pay someone else to handle.

But if the new app and Vodafone relationship gets off to a racing start, it should make the rights negotiation process very interesting.