Optus CEO Stephen Rue fronted staff on Friday at the telco’s Sydney office to calm nerves over fears it would soon offload its English Premier League rights to Nine Entertainment.
By Monday, most of those present at that meeting had been told the platform would soon shut down, putting roughly 100 jobs on the chopping block.
Just two weeks ago, Capital Brief reported that Nine and Optus were closing in on a deal for the Premier League rights. Talks over the deal first surfaced in Nine’s Financial Review back in January, but as recently as May — as is often the case with sports rights negotiations — they had been reported to be at an impasse.
In any case, the on-again, off-again talks finally yielded a deal on Monday, when Nine confirmed in a statement to the ASX that it had acquired Optus Sport’s assets — most importantly its Premier League rights — for an upfront fee of $20 million. The rights will transfer to Nine’s streaming platform, Stan, from 1 August.
