TV3 offers to screen part of Air NZ Cup

MediaWorks says it would be interested in broadcasting some of the Air New Zealand Cup matches Sky doesn't want to cover. Photo / Greg Bowker

TV3 has offered to pick up any Air New Zealand Cup matches that Sky does not wish to screen - but only if it remains a 14-team competition.

In a further indication that a six-team, second-tier competition is a potential broadcasting wasteland, MediaWorks chief executive Brent Impey said his network probably wouldn't have an interest in it.

"If the competition was going to stay at 14 teams and if Sky was only going to broadcast five games, we would have an interest in two games a week if that was the case," Impey said.

"If it goes to 10 and six we'd have less interest because there is a heck of a difference between populations, support, strength between, let's say, a Northland or Counties and Wanganui or Mid Canterbury.

"We would have an interest if it stayed at 14 but we probably wouldn't if it went to 10 and six."

Impey's comments will provide grist to the mill for the majority of unions outside the "Big Five" Super 14 franchise bases, who are becoming increasingly worried that a drop into the proposed second tier will be akin to a drop into the abyss.

Two weeks ago the Herald reported that it was looking increasingly likely that the Air New Zealand Cup would remain at 14 teams for next year, before changes were forced on the New Zealand Rugby Union in 2011.

A Players' Association conference saw its members raise doubts about the second-tier competition becoming "attractive, aspirational and meaningful" as stipulated by the NZRU.

For it to become meaningful, broadcast coverage is mandatory and it is believed Sky would ideally like to broadcast five matches each weekend.

Impey was not prepared to say whether he had put a proposal in front of the NZRU.

Although Sky Sport director of programming Kevin Cameron did not return calls, it is unlikely that the subscriber network, the broadcast partner of the NZRU, would consider letting the national body split the competition into two broadcast packages.

Impey, not surprisingly, did not see why it could not happen. "We're now starting to see it in Australia with the AFL, where it is split between [pay TV operator] Foxtel and [free-to-air] Seven and Ten. So my answer to that is we would be interested in quality Air New Zealand Cup matches if there were free-to-air packages available.