Streaming provider Stan is set to introduce more advertisements on its sporting broadcasts despite recently raising its price by $5 per month, as it enjoys an increase of around 100,000 subscribers directly thanks to its acquisition of the Premier League rights from Optus.
The chief executive of its parent company Nine Entertainment, Matt Stanton, confirmed in Nine’s annual results briefing on Wednesday there will be no more Premier League matches on free-to-air after this Saturday’s clash between Chelsea and Fulham, despite outstanding audience numbers in the first two weeks.
Last weekend’s 9.30pm AEST clash between Manchester City and Tottenham attracted an average audience of 567,000 across Nine and Stan, with a reach of over 1.5m, according to Stanton.
“This was more than double our usual audience in that time slot with the added benefit of boosting late audiences into the NRL [which preceded it],” he said. “The results have been extraordinary, with the second weekend delivering the most sports viewers on a single day in Stan’s history, ahead of the first Sunday of the 2024 Olympics.”
The Lions series was also described as “very strong for us”, said Stanton, who added that the company’s digital growth strategy “was further progressed with the introduction of advertising to Stan Sport” for the rugby tour.
Stan Sport costs $20 per month on top of an entertainment plan starting at $12, and its growth helped inflate Stan’s overall revenues by 10%.
Sport subscribers last year were already growing “by a low double digit percentage” thanks largely to the Olympics, according to Graeme Cassells, Nine’s acting chief financial officer, but the Premier League triggered an additional bump.
Overall subscribers to Stan increased to 2.5m from 2.3m a year ago, and Stanton said it was “about right” to attribute 100,000 of that growth to the acquisition of the Premier League.
The deal has now made Stan the main challenger to Kayo Sports in the sports streaming market in Australia. Kayo also increased the price of its standard package from $25 to $30 in June.
“We moved our Stan Sport price from $15 to $20 [per month] because of the addition of the Premier League into that suite, because we’ve got scale in that market now, so the scale of Stan Sport is very sizeable now,” Stanton said, highlighting its football, tennis and Olympics properties.
“The good thing for us about that ‘win’, if you like [gaining the Premier League rights], was the fact that now Stan Sport is a real, a good scale player and a good opportunity for us.”
Channel Nine has used its other properties to promote its new acquisition, including a story on A Current Affair last week covering the “rise” of the Premier League in Australia.
