Global streaming company Netflix has said it won’t be making a play for the upcoming NRL broadcast rights. 

A spokesman for Netflix confirmed to The Australian Financial Review that the streamer would not bid for any of the rights, which could change hands from the 2028 season. This comes off the back of Brandon Riegg, Netflix’s vice president of unscripted, documentary, and sports series stating that the streaming giant is focused on “buzzy and unmissable” events rather than an entire season of a given sport.

Netflix first announced itself into the sporting broadcast world via the NFL, streaming only the Christmas Day games in 2024, 2025 and not the entire season. Now, the company streams WWE and boxing events globally every week.

“We can certainly look at it, but it’s probably more of a volume play. We’re not at the point where it makes sense for us. It runs a bit counter to the event size strategy we’ve been following,” Riegg said. “Anytime those things come up, we certainly look at it, and sometimes the leagues are willing to create a package that makes the most sense for us.”

With Netflix’s focus on big, set-piece sporting occasions, it seems the only appealing section of the NRL calendar would be the three-part State of Origin series. But, as Netflix has ruled itself out of rights discussions, we’ll never know what that might look like.

Considering that no local broadcaster would purchase the rights if it came without the series, it appears an Origin carve out for anyone would be highly improbable. Game three alone reached an enormous total TV national reach of 5,657,000, with a national average audience of 3,904,000, a 9.3 per cent year-on-year increase.

Not only would local broadcasters reluctantly give up this spectacle but Australia’s anti-siphoning laws effectively require State of Origin to be free to the public. As such, Netflix or any other paid streaming service would not have the rights exclusively.

“We need to curate sporting events that feel like they drive real urgency… because what you’re doing is you’re picking that over Bridgerton or Stranger Things on a given night,” he said.

That’s why Netflix opted into jumping in the ring with Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. The event that streamed in November of last year at one point had 65 million concurrent streams watching around the world, with the United States alone peaking at 38 million.

Outside of boxing and WWE the streaming giant holds the US rights to the next two FIFA Women’s World Cups in 2027 and 2031. And in Japan, it is currently broadcasting the World Baseball Classic.

Viva Las Vegas 

The NRL officially commenced its 2026 season two weeks ago in Las Vegas. A record 45,719 fans packed into Allegiant Stadium (home of NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders) as Leeds, Newcastle and Canterbury secured victories in the sport’s third visit to Sin City. The launch was deemed a success as the matches were watched by 2.1 million viewers, an increase of 7 per cent on last year’s event.

The NRL are locked in to play round one in Vegas until at least 2028—the first year of the new rights. Peter V’landys the chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) has previously stated he wants the rights to be worth more than $4 billion over five years, which would make it bigger than the AFL’s six-year $4.5 billion deal.

It is believed the formal broadcast negotiations have commenced considering the NRL revealed that this would be the case as soon as the Australian Kangaroos side has finished its Ashes tour in England. The Kangaroos stomped its authority on the series back in November, completing the three-nil clean sweep with a 30 to eight victory over the Poms.

The last deal was signed by Nine and Foxtel with the code back in 2020. This deal is reportedly believed to be worth $1.7 billion.

With the code in a much stronger position than it was back in the haze of a global pandemic, with a reported revenue of $845.6 million — an increase of $100.7 million from 2024, it is expected that the new rights deal will be significantly higher.

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