What is Nine's Wide World of Sports?
Wide World of Sports is the sport brand of Nine Entertainment, the Australian television, publishing and radio company. Nine's advertising arm gives wwos.nine.com.au as the brand's digital destination and describes it in its own media kit as "the home of the Olympics, NRL, State of Origin, the Rugby World Cup and all four tennis grand slams"; that is Nine's characterisation of its own service rather than an independent finding.[1]
The brand is not confined to one platform. Nine's own reporting of its 2026 Australian Open coverage sets out audiences on the Nine Network's broadcast channels and on the 9Now streaming service together, and Nine's Olympic agreement with the International Olympic Committee was announced as covering Nine's free-to-air channels, 9Now, the Stan subscription service, Nine's metropolitan talk radio stations and its newspaper mastheads.[2][3]
What does Nine's Wide World of Sports cover?
Rugby league is the longest-running commitment. The trade publication SportsIndustryAU, in a page of Australian media rights deals last updated on 9 March 2025, records the National Rugby League's 2023 to 2027 agreement as held by Nine Entertainment, Fox Sports and Sky TV New Zealand at reported total media rights revenue above 400 million Australian dollars a year.[5] On 7 July 2026 the NRL announced the agreement that follows it: a seven-year deal reported at 5.3 billion Australian dollars, running from the end of the 2027 season through 2034, under which Nine broadcasts three NRL and NRLW matches a week free-to-air and holds exclusive rights to the men's and women's State of Origin series, with the Foxtel Group continuing as the subscription partner.[4]
The Olympic Games are the second pillar. In February 2023 the International Olympic Committee awarded Nine exclusive free and subscription audio-visual rights, and non-exclusive audio rights, in Australia to five editions — Paris 2024, Milan Cortina 2026, Los Angeles 2028, the 2030 Olympic Winter Games and Brisbane 2032 — carried across Nine's television, streaming, radio and publishing platforms.[3] Tennis is the third: SportsIndustryAU records a Tennis Australia agreement with the Nine Network and Stan Sport running from 2025 to 2029 and reported at a 425 million Australian dollar cash component plus further value in contra.[5]
How large is Nine's Wide World of Sports's audience?
The most recent measured figures Nine has published for a single sport event are for the 2026 Australian Open. In a release dated 2 February 2026 Nine reported that the two weeks of coverage reached more than 14.31 million Australians, an increase of 9.3 per cent year on year; that the men's final drew a total television reach of 6.302 million and a national total television average audience of 3.448 million, with 905,000 watching on 9Now; and that the women's final drew a national total television reach of 3.816 million and an average audience of 2.135 million, with 500,000 on 9Now. Nine gave the figures as Total TV, National Total TV and BVOD measures and did not name the measurement service.[2]
For the digital side of the brand, no separate figure could be retrieved. Mediaweek's report of the Ipsos iris measurement for June 2026 put 14.1 million Australians on sports websites and apps in that month, at an average of 56.6 minutes a day, and listed the five largest sport brands by unique audience as the Australian Football League on 3.75 million, news.com.au – Sport on 3.26 million, ESPN.com.au on 3.13 million, Fox Sports on 2.86 million and the National Rugby League on 2.57 million; the Wide World of Sports site did not appear in that published top five, and no Ipsos iris figure for it could be retrieved.[6]
Since when has Nine's Wide World of Sports existed?
A founding date for the Wide World of Sports brand could not be established from a primary source. Nine's own media kit describes the brand as having set a standard across "decades" without giving a year, and that wording is Nine's own.[1]
What can be dated precisely are the agreements the brand now rests on. The Olympic rights were announced in February 2023 and run from Paris 2024 to Brisbane 2032.[3] The tennis agreement with Tennis Australia runs from 2025 to 2029.[5] The rugby league agreement announced on 7 July 2026 begins at the end of the 2027 season and runs to 2034, which places Nine's two largest commitments — Olympic Games and rugby league — beyond the end of the decade.[4]
Why does Nine's Wide World of Sports matter in Australia's sport?
Australian sport rights are split between free-to-air networks and subscription services, and that split is not purely commercial. The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts describes the anti-siphoning scheme, a legislative instrument made under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, as intended to "promote the free availability to audiences throughout Australia of television coverage of events of national importance and cultural significance", and states that subscription television broadcasters cannot acquire rights to listed events unless "a free-to-air broadcaster has a right to televise the event". The department also records that an event is automatically removed from the list 26 weeks before it is due to start.[7]
The department states that the reformed anti-siphoning scheme and the modernised anti-siphoning list commenced on 17 December 2024, following the passage of reform legislation through Parliament on 4 July 2024 that extended the regime to online streaming services.[8][7] Nine sits on the free-to-air side of that structure for the Olympic Games and for State of Origin, while the Foxtel Group takes the subscription rugby league package, which is the arrangement the 7 July 2026 announcement preserves.[4]
References
- Nine for Brands — Wide World of Sports media kit. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Nine for Brands — Nine's Australian Open 2026 audience release, 2 February 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Mediaweek — Nine officially awarded Olympic Games broadcast rights up to 2032, 8 February 2023. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ABC News — NRL announces new broadcast rights deal worth estimated 5.3 billion dollars, 7 July 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- SportsIndustryAU — Australian media rights deals, page updated 9 March 2025. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Mediaweek — Ipsos iris sport category, June 2026 data, published 21 July 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts — Anti-siphoning. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Department of Infrastructure — Anti-siphoning scheme review, commencement of the reformed scheme. Accessed 2026-09-19.