Leigh Leopards’ owner Derek Beaumont has offered an update on the status of the next broadcast deal and how it could look, whilst maintaining that the NRL need Super League.
The Leopards’ owner has spoken in a video shared to the Leigh YouTube channel, with the video understood to have been recorded prior to last Friday’s play-off loss. It’s also believed that the video was recorded before a late-notice meeting was held between NRL kingmaker Peter V’landys and the 14 Super League clubs, after which it’s been reported that 12 of the 14 clubs, including Leigh, were supportive of the NRL proposition.
Comments made in Leigh’s YouTube video are to the contrary with Beaumont going as far as to state himself as an ‘absolute no’ to the deal that was on the table at the time, but when contacted by Serious About Rugby League, the club confirmed that Beaumont’s stance on the NRL situation is the same as in the interview.
There’s a lot to unpack from the hour-long video with a good portion dedicated to the NRL deal and the broadcast deal, both of which cross over a lot. Here are the key talking points.
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Leigh Leopards’ owner calls on Super League+ to become leading platform
The major focus for Beaumont was the TV deal with the Leigh owner maintaining that without Sky Sports, Super League would not be what it is, though he did claim that rugby league is ‘significantly undervalued’.
He also expressed disappointment at the coverage of the games on the red button, something many will agree with him upon, before asserting that Super League as an entity needs to make more use of Super League+ – their own paid subscription streaming channel.
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Beaumont said: “I’ve been a big advocate of Super League+, of having our own ownership of our game in time. I’ve said that we should create the competitive tension with Sky… they don’t know what 14 owners and the RFL and RL Commercial are plotting or capable of, so we should be building that up.”
He also seemed to confirm previous reports that from 2027 onward, Sky Sports will take three games per week with the remaining four up for tender, and he’s advocated for Super League+, and not any NRL partner, to be the home of the remaining four games.
The Leigh owner said: “I’ve got masses of ideas of how to grow Super League+ as being a go-to place for rugby league fans and then where that wins and what it delivers is in three years time, that will have got so good and have so many people that we will determine how much we give our games away for, if [we give] any [game away].
“That for me is the winning part of this deal with Sky. We’ve got the security of their money, that we’ve always had, nothing has changed and we’ve got that piece for three years but we’ve got that opportunity to create something special with four games that we can grow and increase as we get better and better with it.”
A big argument in favour of that was to avoid ‘selling ourselves short to somebody on the other side of the world who would show us through a different platform and kind of buy us with your own money and take equity that when they walk away from, they could end up owning half of our game’.
NRL offer assessed
Of course, he was talking about the NRL in that final comment, with the initial offer of investment made to RL Commercial believed to have seen the NRL take an extra 10% share of Super League for each of the five years they invest in the competition.
Speaking about his skepticism of the NRL, Beaumont said: “What was being said and what was being put out there looked to me like a methodical plan to undermine Super League, how it looked, it’s value, and then they kind of came at it with no real offers.
“There was nothing really to comment on but that changed recently where an offer was made that I wouldn’t term an offer, simple as that.”
Beaumont would go on to confirm that the offer in question changed to an offer that ‘looked to good to be true’, before stating that there would be a call that afternoon at short notice to discuss. It’s believed that call is the call that has seen outlets such as inews report that 12 of the 14 Super League teams backed the NRL plan, with Leigh understood to be among them.
Despite that, the Leopards owner said in the video: “As it stands, I’m an absolute no. I’ve just said to you about Super League+, that’s our future. That’s where this game grows significantly and can do it’s own decent deal.”
Why the NRL needs Super League, as Derek Beaumont outlines stance
He’d go on to explain that Super League has suddenly become more valuable to the NRL because their own TV deal, which was agreed earlier this year, now relies on Super League as part of the collection for their European broadcast partner DAZN.
Using the analogy of a car collection, Beaumont has now suggested that Super League has ‘become the most valuable car in that collection, even though it probably isn’t’, because of the fact the NRL want Super League rights for their own broadcast deal.
He argued: “We need to use that strength to either get a deal that is too good to be true, where we’re determining what we get and not the NRL dealing with a broadcaster and then telling us what we get out of it.
“That’s how I see it and until that changes, I certainly won’t be voting for it and I know others that won’t either. It won’t grow legs and get there unless it significantly changes but it’s coming to a dead end of time and we need to call that literally as soon as today because otherwise we’re going to lose our ground on getting Super League+ to where it needs to be.”
As referenced throughout, the aforementioned call has taken place and was believed to be met with overwhelming positivity, though when contacted for comment, Leigh maintained that their owner holds the same views on the NRL as expressed in their latest video. That video can be found here.
