Nine goes all in on sports with EPL coup to bulk up Stan

The Age

30-06-2025

Nine Entertainment has taken a big swing (or massive header) in buying the broadcast rights to English Premier League and FA Cup soccer to bolster its fledgling Stan Sport streaming service.
These rights, being acquired from Optus, will cost an estimated $60 million a year – the equivalent of around half what Nine pays for the right to major rugby league games.
But while many of us were introduced to the sport via the excitement around the Matildas and the Socceroos international games, these are not part of the package. Paramount and Ten have these matches tied up.
Nine is punting on soccer fans being willing to pay for a Stan subscription and an additional Stan Sport subscription to watch these games. It knows that around half of the roughly 700,000 of the people that watch Optus Sport are not Stan subscribers, so in theory these soccer fans could migrate to Stan.
But some of the Optus subscribers were given concessional rates if they used the Optus phone network so Stan pricing may prove too rich for some soccer fans. Even after accounting for the fact that not all these subscribers are bankable, Nine told investors that the deal would improve Stan's profit and cashflow.
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Fresh from the sale of its 60 per cent stake in real estate portal Domain which netted Nine proceeds of $1.4 billion, Nine's new boss, Matt Stanton, has the cash to invest. And it is probably no accident that Stanton has chosen Stan Sport as the recipient of the first lick of cash.
Having sold its stake in digital business Domain, Nine needs an asset in which there is potential for growth given free to air television is in long-term decline.
Sure, Domain was not firing in all earnings cylinders, but it was operating in a duopoly in a country that is real estate obsessed. In 2024, Domain grew its profit by 32 per cent.