News Corp Offers Brands Exclusive Sports Code Coverage

News Corp Australia is offering brands a unique opportunity to block out their competitors and secure exclusive advertising rights with a specific sporting code on all their titles and platforms.

The new advertising initiative, correctly titled ‘Code Block’, will allow a brand to have its marketing campaign run alongside all news and highlights of one particular sport, like NRL for example.

Sports allocated to this initiative include the AFL, NRL, cricket, motorsport and racing, with Michael Miller, executive chairman at News Corp, telling AdNews the rights would be first offered to the brand sponsoring that code of sport.

“We have a very good relationship with all the sporting codes,” he said.

“We will work with their partners with a category exclusivity offer first, even though we’re contractually not obliged, but we think that is the right thing to do.

“If it’s Toyota and the AFL, we give them a reasonable amount of time to accept … and then take it to the market which allows us to price it accordingly.”

It is expected that this new form of advertising will bring with it a “competitive intensity”.

“Some people will pay a lot to have their name associated with a code,” Miller said.

“I think we’re living in a dynamic market whereby prices … need to be far more flexible.”

News has previously run with brand exclusive on some of its titles.

The Courier-Mail, The Advertiser in Adelaide and the NT News has had Ladbrokes as an exclusive gaming brand for two years.