Nine's Wide World of Sports is a long running sports anthology brand on Australian television that airs on the Nine Network and streaming service Stan. All major sports, events and series covered by the network are broadcast under this brand, the flagship sports being rugby league (National Rugby League), rugby union (Super Rugby and Wallabies international matches) and Grand Slam tennis (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, US Open), the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics and the Paralympic Games, and spring horse racing (Melbourne Cup). Previous sporting rights include the Australian rules football (Australian Football League), Australian Cricket Team home season, autumn horse racing, swimming until 2008, and golf (US Masters) since 2018.
History 1981–1990s – Creation and contract competition Wide World of Sports (WWoS) is a long-used title for Nine's sport programming. All sports broadcasts on Nine air under the WWoS brand. It was also the name of a popular sports magazine program that aired most Saturdays and Sundays. This program filled many of the summer daytime hours. It was first pitched by David Hill who went on to hold a broad portfolio in WWoS. The program premiered at 1:00 pm on Saturday, 23 May 1981, and was initially hosted by Mike Gibson and Ian Chappell, before being hosted in the 1990s by Max Walker and Ken Sutcliffe. Ian Maurice was the regular anchor at the WWOS Update Desk. The show ended in 1999, due in large part to the rise of Fox Sports (which Nine's owner owned half of) and other subscription sport channels, but the show returned in 2008 on Sunday mornings.
It was unrelated to the series Wide World of Sports aired by ABC in the United States, which started in 1961."Wide World of Sports - Some Hits, Some Errors", New York Times, 19 April 1981 From the late 1970s, the main sport aired nationally under the WWoS brand was cricket. Nine's majority owner Kerry Packer created World Series Cricket in part because he couldn't obtain the rights to Australian test matches at home, even though he offered the Australian Cricket Board a $1.5 million three year contract which was rejected by the ACB who signed a three year deal with the ABC to broadcast test matches. This led to Packer signing in secret some of the world's best cricket players for a breakaway competition.
In 1977, 35 of the "world's best players" had signed with Packer's World Series Cricket, which was broadcast in competition with ABC's cricket coverage of the ICC. Nine's Wide World of Sports was the "first broadcaster to put a microphone on the players for an international cricket match," which later became common practice in the industry."Cricket and the Media", International Cricket Hall, 2010 ABC and Nine then signed a truce after a long dispute in 1979, with Nine securing the exclusive rights to telecast Australian cricket. From that point until 2006, Nine based its summer schedule around broadcasts of cricket internationally and domestic. Its cricket broadcasts in that era revolutionized the way the sport was covered, featuring cameras placed at both ends of the field (after Packer famously complained about seeing "cricketer's bums" every second over), instant replays, and other innovations. World Series Cricket made many other changes to cricket, having a huge impact on the game.
David Hill was among the early executives that developed WWoS.David Hill, the Australian who changed the face of sports TV, is doing the same for the Oscars PerthNow 26 February 2016 In the early 1980s, well-known hosts and presenters on Wide World of Sports included Mike Gibson"Mike Gibson, veteran sports presenter and commentator, dies aged 75", The Guardian, Australian Associated Press, 23 September 2015Mike Gibson's ability to empathise with punters made him a storyteller without peer PerthNow 23 September 2015 and Ian Chappell, both the inaugural hosts of the Saturday afternoon program in 1981.
Billy Birmingham in 1984 released a comedy album that satirized cricket "and in particular Channel Nine's iconic commentary team with Richie Benaud the central figure," which became popular in Australia,"Billy Birmingham to retire 'The 12th Man'", The Roar, Benjamin Conkey, 9 November 2015 called The Wired World of Sports. Among the hosts satirized were his friend Mike Gibson."Legendary sports commentator and journalist Mike Gibson dies aged 75", The Daily Telegraph, 23 September 2015 Birmingham went on to release a series of albums ridiculing all aspects of Wide World of Sports, calling the show "Wired World of Sports". From the first to the most recent (2006), all have reached number one on the Australian album chart.
David Hill helped establish Nine's Wide World of Sports early on, and was a "sounding board when the billionaire famously sold the network to Alan Bond and then bought it back three years later for less than a quarter of the price." Writes the Sydney Morning Herald, "Packer's decision to sell Nine to Bond in 1987 for $1.2 billion - before buying back the network in 1990 for $250 million - is legendary in Australian television." Other early broadcasters at WWoS included Ron Casey."Ron Casey, sports journalist and talkback radio presenter, dies at 89", The Guardian, 1 October 2018
January 1995 saw the beginning of Premier Sports Network, the channel that was to become Fox Sports. It secured the rights to Australia's cricket tour of the West Indies, Nine's first challenge since winning its World Series war. Nine tried to stop the broadcast under Australia's "anti-siphoning" rules, which exist to stop certain popular sporting events being screened exclusively on pay television. But it failed when Premier Sports Network came to an agreement to broadcast the tour free to air on Network 10.
WWoS's other main sport was and is rugby league. This was challenged in 1997 by the establishment of Super League, the repercussions of which led to Nine's parent company owning half of Fox Sports that year, and ultimately Nine's move away from popular live sport. This partial purchase of Fox Sports roughly coincided with the end of Nine's traditional Saturday and Sunday daytime schedule of sports programming. What had once filled it now filled subscription channels, mainly Fox Sports. Old movies and other low rating programs filled much of the space. Between the late 1970s and 1997, when Australians had wanted to watch continuous sport at home on a summer weekend, they had largely done so by tuning to Nine. Those in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory did this all year round, due to rugby league's popularity in those areas. Now Fox Sports had that mantle, and gave viewers continuous sport all week long.
In the 1990s, the Wide World of Sports marketed sports paraphernalia such as signed and framed bats, and items from the Australian Rugby League."The road to riches down memory lane", Australian Financial Review, Charles Wright, 15 May 1999
Paul Sheahan hosted Nine's Wide World of Sports program until 1999."‘Tangles’ was all heart", MCC News, November 2016 Max Walker hosted until it ended in 1999."Former Australian cricketer Max Walker dies at 68", Stuff.co, Joe Pierek, 28 September 2016"Max Walker dies aged 68", Sunshine Coast Daily, 28 September 2016
2000–2008 – Changing broadcasting deals In 2001, The Nine Network acquired broadcast rights for Friday night and Sunday afternoon games in the Australian Football League, the elite Australian rules football competition in 2001. Seven had previously held the TV rights for 44 years prior."Nine Network unveils AFL strategy", Sport Business, 19 September 2001 They shared the rights with Network Ten and Foxtel from 2002 through to 2006, but the deal assigned exclusive rights for the finals series to Ten, a deal which reportedly flabbergasted Nine boss Kerry Packer.
As it also had the rights for all major swimming competitions until 2008, major swimming competitions were shown in primetime. During the early to mid-2000s, Nine for the first time had the FTA rights to the highest competitions of Australia's four biggest spectator sports: rugby league, Australian rules (shared with Ten), cricket and swimming. While Nine no longer had the volume of sport it once had, during the 2000-2006 period it dominated non-Olympic sport broadcasting in Australia.
With existing agreements then set to expire in 2006 and 2007, in 2005, Channel Nine secured a deal to air NRL games until the end of 2012."NRL secures $500m rights deal", ABC, 1 July 2005
Eddie McGuire was named CEO of Nine Network with oversight of the Wide World of Sports brand in 2006."Lock it in, Eddie", The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February 2006
In January 2006, the Seven Network and Network Ten exercised their "first and last" rights agreement with the AFL to trump the Nine Network's $780 million bid for broadcasting rights for the years 2007 to 2011."Seven and Ten win AFL rights", The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 January 2006 If Seven and Ten were unable to match the AFL's "quality of coverage" demands by 5 May 2006 (better coverage into regional areas, northern states and on pay television, as promised in the Nine bid) the AFL would have been allowed to award the broadcasting rights back to Nine.
The Seven/Ten consortium, however, obtained the rights,"Seven, Ten win AFL broadcasting rights", The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 January 2006"Seven, Ten win AFL rights", The Age, 6 January 2006 with Nine broadcasting its last AFL match on Sunday 3 September 2006. The match was hosted by Tony Jones with a guest appearance from Nine's then chief executive and former AFL commentator Eddie McGuire.
In 2004, it was making an annual income of around $30 million on broadcasting Australian cricket, with the television rights expiring at the end of the 2006. Around 2004, Cricket Australia began negotiating for a higher price."Cricket's battle over TV rights", Crikey, 6 December 2004 In 2005, Nine Network bid on cricket for $45 million a year, winning the contract and signing a seven year deal with Cricket Australia."Nine still the one for cricket as Packer's killer bid gives game $45 million a year", The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 2005
From the beginning of the 2006-2007 cricket season, Nine no longer broadcast Australian domestic cricket.
In 2012, Nine Network had a $1 billion contract for NRL rights and a $300 million cricket rights deal set to expire the following March."Nine Network on the brink of collapse", Illawarra Mercury, Michael Idato and Colin Kruger, 16 October 2012
Instead, it replaced the coverage with delayed National Basketball League matches in October, with weekly one-hour highlight shows and full games."Hoops back on free-to-air", The Age, 5 October 2006 The domestic cricket matches, long a mainstay of Nine's summer programming, moved exclusively to Fox Sports.
2008–2020: return of Wide World of Sports After a ten-year hiatus, it was announced that the Wide World of Sports weekly television program would return to Nine on 16 March 2008, using the same theme song as the old version, as well as accessing old footage for replays. This show was hosted by the previous host Ken Sutcliffe, with footy show star James Brayshaw as well as former Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist. Revolving co-hosts included former swimmers Giaan Rooney, Nicole Livingstone and former cricketer Michael Slater."Returning: Wide World of Sports", TVTonight, David Knox, 11 March 2008 That year, it broadcast the Australian Open with its own team of commentators."John McEnroe, Todd Woodbridge sign on Nine's Australian Open team.", TV Tonight, David Knox, 9 August 2018 The show originally aired for 90 minutes but was recently extended to two hours. It aired on Sunday mornings at 9am till 11am.