Australia’s New EPL Home: How Expensive Rights Proved a Headache for Optus
While the English Premier League (“EPL”) has been enjoying its summer break, a commercial agreement has quietly changed the way Australian fans will watch the upcoming season. On 30 June, Optus announced the assignment of its EPL exclusive broadcast rights in Australia to Nine Entertainment Co (“Nine”), the parent company of Stan. [1] Also included were the other international football competitions previously shown on Optus Sport, including the Emirates FA Cup, the J. League and the National Women’s Soccer League.
The deal means that the imminent EPL season will be available live and exclusively on Stan Sport in Australia. Perhaps a touch sadly, it also marks the end of Optus Sport as a standalone package. As Australian followers of the beautiful game adapt to the EPL’s new home, the Optus-Nine agreement illustrates how securing lucrative broadcasting rights can turn from a dream into a nightmare.
An Expensive Proposition
In the years since the creation of the EPL in 1992, the broadcast rights of the league have climbed astronomically. The most recent sale of EPL broadcast rights in respect of the 2025-28 rights cycle was reported to bring in £12.25 billion ($25.37 billion) for the Premier League. This increase of 17% from the previous 2022-25 rights cycle was principally attributable to an increase in the value of rights sold outside of the UK. [2] For the first time, the annual broadcast rights to the EPL were more valuable internationally than domestically.
In light of this, Optus found itself spending a vast outlay on its exclusive Australian broadcast rights to the EPL. Optus had held these rights since the beginning of the 2016 season and proudly announced their latest renewal back in 2021, touting their “lock in” of broadcasting rights for a period comprising the six EPL seasons from 2022 to 2028. [3] These rights were acquired for a reported total figure of around $600 million, broken down into approximately $100 million for each televised EPL season. [4] In an attempt to recoup these hefty outgoings, Optus immediately increased the price of their Optus Sport package, implementing a hike from $14.99 to $24.99 per month. Meanwhile, eligible customers enrolled with Optus as network provider were offered $6.99 per month for a package that they had previously received free of charge. [5]
A Disappointing Return on Investment
Despite this hike in subscription fees, Optus’s assignment of their rights to Nine mid-contract term shows that these expensive broadcasting rights ultimately proved a white elephant. The telecommunications company found itself locked into a lengthy six-year deal with the Premier League and presumably concluded that it was not seeing an adequate return on investment. This would have required an increase in total number of Optus Sport customers as well as reduced “churn” (subscribers cancelling their existing package). However, from a peak of over 1 million subscribers in late 2021, by 2025 the number of subscribers had in fact fallen to just over 700,000. [6] In a country boasting a popular domestic sports market and grappling with a cost-of-living crisis, the EPL struggled to prove enough of a draw to Australian viewers.
Optus’s desperation to be rid of these expensive rights is evidenced in what we know of their deal terms with Nine. It is reported that Optus will continue to foot the bill for $40 million of the roughly $100 million payable annually to the Premier League. [7] This means that, over the three years left on the rights contract, the telecommunications giant will fork out an additional $120 million on rights that it no longer owns. From Optus’s point of view, this eats substantially into the $300 million total deal value, which was received from Nine in return for Optus’s entire suite of sports broadcasting rights. [8]
A Change of Fortunes on Stan?
Following its acquisition of Optus’ football rights package, Nine will be hoping for a mass migration of previous Optus Sport customers onto its own Stan Sport service. Stan Sport is available only as an add-on to the overall Stan package. This requires football fanatics to spend an additional $20 monthly on top of the basic Stan package available at a minimum of $12 monthly. This climbs up to $22 monthly for the privilege of watching in Ultra HD, meaning a total outlay of between $32 and $42 monthly for prospective Stan Sport customers not already signed up to Stan. [9] Notably for football fans, however, since 2021 Stan Sport also has the exclusive right to televise the UEFA Champions League and other UEFA competitions in Australia. When added to existing coverage of primetime competitions across rugby union, motor racing and tennis (as well as the Olympics), you can infer Stan Sport’s ambition of becoming the one-stop shop for Australian sports fans.
As the existing contract between Optus and the Premier League had a term through to the end of the 2027/28 season, Stan Sport’s coverage of the EPL in Australia will last the same duration. Following that, Nine should be able to contract the subsequent EPL rights cycle directly with the Premier League. Only time will tell whether Nine will be as keen to renew these costly broadcasting rights as it was to secure them.
References
[6] https://www.bandt.com.au/stan-to-score-premier-league-optus-to-foot-the-40m-bill/
[8] Ibid.