NRL TV negotiations up in the air as CEO Dave Smith quits amid pressure from News Corp

Alex Hayes

October 20, 2015 9:39

The future of the NRL TV rights deal looks to be up in the air as the CEO of the sports code Dave Smith has quit midway through the negotiations.

Out: Dave Smith

Smith has been under pressure since announcing he had completed a deal with Network Nine for the free-to-air TV rights for the code, which included giving some of Fox Sport’s top rating matches to Nine.

That led to a concerted attack on Smith by News Corp papers claiming the code would not make its $1.7bn valuation for the rights as they had been devalued by that other part of the deal. NRL chairman John Grant has taken over as interim CEO.

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Alex Hayes

Alex Hayes worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017 in roles including editor and head of Mumbrella Bespoke.

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1 COMMENTS

Sub-editor 20 Oct 15

“The future of the NRL TV rights deal looks to be up in the air as the CEO of the sports code Dave Smith has quit midway through the negotiations.”

How, exactly? Senior executives depart midway through negotiations all the time, and so much of these media rights deals get done at board level anyway. John Grant (ARL chair) is the key man here, not Smith, who had burnt much of his capital with the networks anyway.

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