The Australian National Rugby League (NRL) is close to signing a AU$90 million (US$69.6 million) 5-year deal with Telstra that will include naming rights and internet and mobile rights, according to News Ltd.
However, a bit of controversy has been stirred up: NRL already sold the TV rights to broadcaster Nine, who claims that its TV rights should include sending TV over to mobile TV networks (the DVB-H mobile TV service, the likes of which doesn’t even exist in Australia for now). Telstra insists any online rights deal should include such a provision.
Unsurprisingly the NRL said the story was incorrect, but didn’t go so far as to say that it hadn’t given the mentioned rights to Nine… “the delay in negotiations with Telstra was due to the complexity surrounding future technology and how to incorporate those elements into a current contract”. So at this point it is not clear who own mobile TV rights, and if Nine ends up owning it, would Telstra pay less than the AUS$90 million it has agreed to.
Telstra paid AU$45 million for an AFL deal last October.