{"id":68159,"date":"2025-08-14T17:27:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T17:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/68159\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T17:27:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T17:27:28","slug":"channel-nine-makes-a-surprise-move-to-slim-down-its-footy-coverage-for-one-big-reason-and-heres-why-nrl-fans-are-happy-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/68159\/","title":{"rendered":"Channel Nine makes a surprise move to slim down its footy coverage for one big reason – and here’s why NRL fans are HAPPY about it"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ED CARRUTHERS, ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR, AUSTRALIA<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published: 04:24 EDT, 14 August 2025 | Updated: 04:32 EDT, 14 August 2025 <\/p>\n

Channel Nine is set to scrap part of its NRL<\/a> coverage for its upcoming Saturday night matches.<\/p>\n

According to Capital Brief<\/a>, the broadcaster will not televise its post-game shows for the prime-time Saturday night slot for the next three weeks, starting with this weekend\u2019s clash between South Sydney and Parramatta.<\/p>\n

It comes as Nine revealed in June that the English Premier League<\/a> will return to free-to-air television in Australia for the first time since 2019.<\/p>\n

Ahead of this weekend\u2019s opening round of Premier League fixtures, the broadcaster will curtail its coverage of the Rabbitohs clash against the Eels in order to televise Aston Villa<\/a>\u2019s season opener against Newcastle.<\/p>\n

Live coverage of Parramatta\u2019s clash against the Souths will finish right after full-time at 9:25pm, with Nine set to switch straight to events unfolding at Villa Park.<\/p>\n

The news has delighted many Aussie sports fans, who had previously required a subscription to watch games on Optus Sport.<\/p>\n

\"Channel <\/p>\n

Channel Nine is set to scrap part of its NRL coverage for its upcoming Saturday night matches<\/p>\n

\"Nine's <\/p>\n

Nine’s coverage of the Souths game against the Eels will end earlier in order for the broadcaster to televise Aston Villa vs Newcastle\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nine\u2019s streaming arm Stan Sport acquired the rights from Optus Sport to stream all 380 Premier League matches for a fee of around $300million in June.<\/p>\n

The landmark move, which will continue for multiple seasons, though it is not certain how many free-to-air matches will be shown on Channel Nine.<\/p>\n

However, The Daily Telegraph claims that Nine\u2019s coverage of the Premier League will not impact this year\u2019s finals series.<\/p>\n

Some fans have hailed the move, with one writing on X: \u2018Good. The Premier League is a much better competition.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Post-match jibber is pretty boring. I normally turn off after two interviews.\u2019<\/p>\n

One added: \u2018Who really cares if they drop the post-game dribbleathon!\u2019<\/p>\n

Some, conversely, added: \u2018Love NRL, don\u2019t love EPL. Love this decision by Channel Nine.\u2019<\/p>\n

Reflecting on Nine and Stan\u2019s acquisition of the Premier League, Nine chief executive officer Matt Stanton, explained the gravity of the move.<\/p>\n

\"Nine\u00bfs <\/p>\n

Nine\u2019s streaming arm Stan Sport had acquired the rights from Optus Sport to stream all 380 Premier League matches for a fee of around $300million in June<\/p>\n

\u2018The Premier League is the most-watched football league on the planet, and alongside the Emirates FA Cup, this acquisition reinforces Nine\u2019s position as the home of sport in Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘We are proud to deliver these iconic competitions to Australian audiences through Stan Sport.<\/p>\n

\u2018The full power of Nine will be activated to bring new attention and energy to the Premier League and Emirates FA Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘With more than 20 million Australians engaging with Nine\u2019s platforms every month, we have an unrivalled ability to generate excitement at scale, drive audience growth and deliver meaningful commercial outcomes for our partners.\u2019<\/p>\n

Share or comment on this article:
\n Channel Nine makes a surprise move to slim down its footy coverage for one big reason – and here’s why NRL fans are HAPPY about it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By ED CARRUTHERS, ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR, AUSTRALIA Published: 04:24 EDT, 14 August 2025 | Updated: 04:32 EDT, 14…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,100,761,762,158,1614,588,85,54076],"class_list":{"0":"post-68159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-dailymail","11":"tag-national-rugby-league","12":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","13":"tag-nrl","14":"tag-premier-league","15":"tag-sport","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-stan-sport"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}