Earlier this month, Touch New Zealand (TNZ) heralded a game changing partnership with broadcast and production company Sportway. Touted as the “future of Touch NZ broadcasting”, the multi-year agreement will see all National tournaments (Open, Masters & Youth Nationals, Premier Touch League, NZSS Nationals and Homegrown Series) operate on TOUCH TV — TNZ’s dedicated broadcast platform.
With prices ranging from $5 per game to $15 for a tournament pass, spectators at home can access live coverage of no fewer than 10 fields, both live and on-demand. On paper, that’s unprecedented visibility and access for our sport.
Reception to the shift has been mixed. Some embrace the change and are calling it revolutionary. Others are skeptical, wary of the burden of yet another cost of an amateur sport in the current economic climate.
The Touch NZ x Sportway partnership has been labelled as "the future of Touch NZ broadcasting."
Firstly, this is a bold and forward thinking move by TNZ. If all goes well, it positions them as a leader in broadcasting innovation, particularly within our sport in this part of the world. For years, certain teams have gotten the lion’s share of the live stream coverage. But this partnership promises a minimum of 10 live streamed fields per round, per day. Based on current TNZ competitions, that equates to roughly 300 games per tournament. That means more games to watch for players, coaches, referees and their whānau and friends — a genuine win.
On the surface, the partnership will generate revenue for Touch NZ. For our sport, that’s literal and figurative gold. The world of televised sports revolve around broadcast deals, and revenue would seemingly come from either Sportway themselves for broadcast rights, or directly from subscriptions. Without knowing the finer details of the partnership, if it is the former, it would be a welcome financial boost for the governing body. If it's subscribers that dictate how much revenue is gained, then that could pose a few problems.
Here’s why.
No less than 10 fields will be live streamed simultaneously, providing more opportunities to watch more teams and games live and on demand from home.
Touch is already an expensive, user-pays sport. Players and referees already pay enough. Some exhaust their networks to help with fundraising and sponsorship just to be able to scrape together the money to participate at a national tournament. Now they’re being asked to pay more just to watch it? Paywalling an amateur sport doesn’t quite sit right — especially when, up until now, it was free.
The common counterpoint is, it’s only $15; people pay more for a couple of coffees, a meal, a haircut, etc. But it’s not the dollar amount that’s the issue — it’s the principle. It’s paying again for something they already heavily invest in. And in this economy, some families find it hard enough to even attend these tournaments, let alone play/officiate in them. And if more than one family member is participating per competition, that overall cost becomes pretty steep, pretty quick. An extra $15 per tournament might not sound like much to some, but for others it seems like an avoidable cost that is out of their control.
This leads to the next big question on the financial side: where will the revenue go? Eventually that information will become transparent when the TNZ Annual Reports are released, but the question does deserve to be tabled all the same. It’s a huge financial commitment to play our sport, particularly for elite players. The cost for a Touch Black to play at last year’s World Cup in England was a little under $10k. Factor in the cost of trial/training camps, Nationals, PTL, and club fees, plus travel, transport and accommodation and some players would have paid close to $30k last season alone. Ditto for referees; the cost to officiate our sport isn’t cheap either. Our officials are paying fees that are about on par with our players. So does the income generated from the TNZ x Sportway partnership get reinvested into easing those costs? Or is the cost to play and officiate our sport only going to continue to increase with each passing year?
The change to a subscription-based model hasn't been universally welcomed, with members of the Touch community citing another cost to pay.
The biggest blind spot is the claim from TNZ that this model will increase “visibility and accessibility of our sport at all levels.” More games being streamed is great for whānau and friends who can’t attend the tournament in-person and will more than likely pay the subscription fee. But in fairness, they’re the audience already invested in our sport; more games don’t automatically grow visibility. It expands coverage for the existing audience — not reach. What our sport needs is new eyeballs on the product in order for it to grow, and we can’t expect to get that with obstacles in the way. Casual viewers won’t tune in to our sport organically if it’s not easily discoverable, or if their first exposure to it is a paywall. And if we can’t attract a casual audience, tournaments are no more than a family & friends event. Adding a(nother) cost barrier limits growth, limits reach, and limits the sport’s ability to attract new sponsors, new media, and new fans.
Attracting new eyes is what social media is for. That makes sense to an extent. But respectfully, TNZ’s socials aren’t exactly the greatest. They don’t entice users to engage. Even if their content was high quality, social media doesn’t necessarily equal more visibility, especially if it doesn’t convert to subscriptions. It can help funnel new viewers, but it can’t compensate for a paywall. You can lead a horse to water — but if the water costs money, the horse walks away.
Attracting a casual audience to grow the game will be a difficult task once national events move to the paywalled platform.
But Touch Football Australia have a subscription model as well, and they’re thriving. TFA’s events sit behind a subscription, yes — but the key difference is that they’re on Kayo, one of Australia’s biggest mainstream sports streaming services. That means TFA aren’t asking viewers to sign up for another service; it’s placed alongside rugby league, cricket, motorsport and other major sports that people already pay to watch. That alone gives Touch instant discoverability and legitimacy with casual audiences who might stumble across it while browsing. On top of that, their tournaments are also streamed globally for free via Sky Sport Next on YouTube, ensuring the game stays accessible. If we’re talking like for like, the equivalent in New Zealand would have been if TNZ events were streamed on Sky Sport Now.
Instead, they’ll now be behind their own separate paywalled platform, limiting casual discovery and narrowing viewership to mostly whānau and friends. Free alternative options are out there. TVNZ+ hosts plenty of household sports like cricket, football, American football and hockey. Whakaata Māori showed that they can broadcast up to six fields at Pacific Cup earlier this month, and are doing the same at Māori Nationals in a few weeks’ time. One has to wonder if they were considered.
Whakaata Māori broadcast six fields simultaneously at Pacific Cup earlier in the month, with the same being planned for Māori Touch Nationals in December.
Finally, let’s touch on the tech. AI-powered coverage is the most cost-effective way to live stream 10+ fields simultaneously and Sportway’s streams for other sports around the world are actually very decent, using ball-tracking technology to keep up with play. It'd be great from a tactical standpoint as well — a lot of coaches around the world would find this type of coverage highly useful as an analytical tool. While many wouldn't mind that for most round robin games, the question eventually turns to, what does the product look like once we get to finals? Because AI can never recreate the human element. We want the feel of the sport, the theatre. We want cameras to zoom and pan to capture players’ expressions, body language and emotions. We want the suspense as referees they discuss and make crucial calls. We want to hear and feel the noise and energy from the sideline supporters. We want commentary, camera cuts and replays that add that extra layer of professionalism and drama to the game. A tracking single-cam product strips away all of that. Sometimes less is more. Two fields done exceptionally well beat 10 fields done with bare-minimum automation every day of the week.
AI-powered tech makes it cost-effective to stream roughly 300 games per tournament, but will it be at the expense of the broadcast quality we've come to expect?
Like with anything, there are pros and cons. TNZ is excited, and there are supporters of the shift, but that feeling isn’t universally shared. And because this is a multi-year deal, this is likely the model we’ll see leading into the 2028 Touch World Cup on home soil.
So it begs the question: will this partnership lifts Touch to new heights, or will it price out the people who made the sport what it is?