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Telstra denies News Corp reports it is planning to ditch its NRL naming rights sponsorship

NRLAustralia’s largest telco Telstra has denied it is looking at not renewing its long running deal with the NRL as the naming rights sponsor of the code.

The move comes after The Australian last week wrote a story claiming that after 17 seasons sponsoring the “Telstra Premiership” it would can its sponsorship and seek only a minor role in the code.

“Reports that Telstra is looking to not renew our NRL naming rights are untrue,” said a Telstra spokesman. “We are proud of what we have built with the NRL to date and are in negotiations to continue our partnership beyond 2017.

“We are unable to comment further as negotiations are ongoing.”

Contacted last week Telstra declined to comment, finally issuing the statement this afternoon.

The telco has a newsroom arrangement called NRL Media with the code, which has helped both brands build their digital following since the last rights round in 2012.

Dave Smith speaking at a press conference earlier ti

Dave Smith

News Corp titles including The Australian and The Daily Telegraph have run a series of articles highly critical of the NRL management, and in particular NRL CEO Dave Smith, for doing a $925m deal with Nine for the sporting rights while failing to simultaneously sign deals with Fox Sports and Telstra.

Some of these reports have gone as far as to suggest that a majority of the NRL clubs are looking to split from the code and do a separate media deal with Ten and Foxtel.

In the wake of the NRL deal News Corp, Seven and Telstra all signed a $2.5bn deal with the AFL, after which News Corp co-chairman Rupert Murdoch told a press conference: “We have always preferred Aussie Rules”.

News Corp also vowed to use its mastheads and media properties to back the AFL in more NRL-centric states like NSW and Queensland.

Asked last week about the negotiations between the NRL and Foxtel, which is 50 per cent each owned by News Corp and by Telstra, media buyers said they believed there would eventually be a deal.

“The NRL and AFL have both come out well of the negotiations and they are the unquestioned winners out of the situation,” said Ian Perrin, CEO of ZenithOptimedia last week.

“Because the majority of the deals have now been done I have no doubt in my mind that an arrangement will be struck between the NRL and Foxtel.”

Nic Christensen 

Sports rights will be discussed at the Sports Marketing Summit on September 9. For more details click the banner. 

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