The man in the middle of the current bunfight over racing sports rights is Ian Frykberg, arguably the most successful sports rights negotiator in the world. Lachlan O’Box tells us everything we need to know about the man who usually delivers for Rupert Murdoch.

Sports fans will have noticed there’s an almighty stoush going on over the rights to broadcast horse racing, principally Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney is currently blacked-out.

The brawl involves the broadcaster, Sky, owned by TAB Ltd, of NSW, which is being courted by UniTab of Queensland, and Tabcorp of Victoria.

Sky links nicely with TAB’s punting business, which is a core competency. UniTab and Tabcorp however, do not sound as interested in keeping the broadcasting business if their ambitions to snaffle up TAB come to fruition; whenever that may be.

But it’s the brawl that is dominating the sports pages and in the punting chatrooms. Sky is not all that loved, despite a belief to the contrary by TAB’s CEO, Warren (Wozza) Wilson. Publicans and clubs claim it charges like a wounded bull and the race clubs in Sydney and Melbourne say their rights are being sold cheaply and want to take control, co-ordinate contracts and negotiations and get an auction going with other interested parties.

It seems everyone wants to be a media magnate and the appearance of Ian Frykberg, perhaps the best connected sports rights negotiator around the world, has created some interest.

Where ever “Frykers” appears things happen, deals get done, and quite often, one Rupert Murdoch appears somewhere in the transaction.

So who is he? A former journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald in State Parliament in Sydney and Federal Parliament in Canberra in the 1970s, Frykers is a confidante and friend of many, especially in Labor politicial circles and the media.

He was the founding Executive Producer of the Today show on the Nine Network, EP of the Sunday and Business Sunday programs, Sports head for Packer; Current Affairs Chief, also for Packer; News and current affairs heavy in London in the 90s for Murdoch’s Sky TV.

He has had a long involvement in sports rights negotiations around the world: principally on behalf of Rupert Murdoch. He is also close to Sam Chisholm, who saved Sky for Murdoch and employed Frykberg (along with Kerry Packer) at Channel 9. Chisholm remains a friend.

He’s either been or remains a consultant to News Corp on Rugby Union rights (the so-called SANZAR or Tri-Nations Rugby Competition in the Southern Hemisphere, along with Super 12 Rugby which is on Foxtel this year with some of the tests on Seven).

He’s a TV consultant to the newly-formed Australian Soccer Association, appointed, according to news reports, by the new supremo, Frank Lowy: that makes a connection to two Australian billionaires!

News reports have also described him as a consultant to the Australian Rugby Union. In the past he was executive director of Sport for News Ltd, headed up the ill-fated Super League rugby league competition (and helped negotiate the truce that saw News end up with half the National Rugby League and content for Foxtel, shared with PBL and Channel 9).

He is also a consultant to the Sydney racing clubs in the current negotiations with TAB.

He has a company called International Sports Television which, among other things, is a sponsor of the Wests Rugby Club in Sydney (according to the Wests website).

Frykberg played sport too. He was a former front rower in NZ, Sydney and Canberra club rugby and gained a reputation for being a hard man. And he’s not a Kiwi; he’s South African, the family moving to New Zealand when he was young.

Frykberg is a director of Global Cricket Corporation, associated or linked to News Corp, which was the sponsorship rights holder for the 2003 World Cup, which is involved in an argument over the divying up of sponsorship monies after the World Cup because of England’s failure to play in Zimbabwe.

Frykberg also knows a bit about horse racing and punting. He races a horse called Thunder Time, in company with several other people. It was a winner in the NSW country in February. He has known racing people like John Singleton and Ray Stehr, as well as a host of others.

That makes him ideally suited to represent the Australian Jockey Club and the Sydney Turf Club in negotiations with TAB Ltd and Sky. Sky is an interesting company: Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch both owned it, then bailed out, selling their stake to TAB Ltd. They then sold off their TAB shares because at the time they couldn’t see the value. Now they rue the day.

Gambling, especially horses, has become a growth business for Murdoch’s Sky TV business in the UK. Attheraces is a business which is jointly owned by Sky, Arena Leisure and Channel Four in the UK. Arena Leisure is Britain’s biggest racecourse owner and has gambling technology.

It has helped drive subscriber- growth for SKY, where Murdoch believes online gambling will be one of the drivers for subscription television in coming years ( So does Packer who tried to start an online gambling business in Vanuatu, but closed it after failing to get Australian legislation changed to allow Australians to gamble online with his business).

But typical of Murdoch, the actual horse racing broadcasting business has proven to be immune to the splashing of money and earlier this year it was revealed in the UK that Attheraces had been forced to terminate a $US560 million deal with Britain’s Racecourse Authority.

Citing falling betting profits, Attheraces said it would instead negotiate contracts with the 49 individual racecourses in the UK (called divide and conquer in non- Murdoch parlance). Attheraces claimed that a drop in margins made through Britain’s Tote pools system had slashed its margins on interactive bets by 47 per cent.

But it would seem that like Soccer, US baseball, Rugby Union et al, Murdoch thought he could buy market dominance by throwing a lot of money (or getting his partners to agree to it) at British racing. But it hasn’t worked.

That nevertheless hasn’t stopped smarter heads wondering about what might happen with the Australian racing rights. Currently Sky’s racing coverage (dogs, horses and trots), are shown on Foxtel, but as just another channel. Sky is big in regional parts of Australia for pay tv and in some parts of major cities, but the clubs, pubs and TAB outlets represent the core.

Foxtel has no control and no chance of extra revenue streams.That is its greatest need as digitisation starts: interactive betting is just made for the digital world and Foxtel has nothing else immediately in prospect.

If Sky controls racing coverage and betting, it also controls the future of interactive betting in Australia: so its being
attacked by News, the pubs and clubs and racing clubs in Sydney and Melbourne. For example, witness Wednesday’s Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph where a story says the Matthew Perrin group (remember his surprise Billabong share sale when CEO) is the frontrunner for racing’s TV right, especially in Sydney.

Frykberg mates John Singleton and Sam Chisholm were involved in a rival group to the Perrins. As well, Tentendigital of the UK has been talking – it provides the racing coverage in the UK for Attheraces. It has talked to both the Sydney clubs and their Melbourne counterpart, TVN, chaired by ad land heavy Harold Mitchell. (A recent story in The Australian neglected to mention the strong links with Murdoch’s Sky TV when discussing Tentendigital).

Tentenracing and Tentendigital supplies services such as broadcasting and a thing called idTV, a racing channel, which allows users to place bets on the next broadcast race with three different bookmakers. In Australia, if successful there’s no doubt Tenten would cosy up to Foxtel and one of the TABs – the winner of the battle for TAB of course – either Unitab or Tabcorp.

This could explain the relaxed nature of Tabcorp to the possible loss of SKY’s broadcast business in Sydney and Melbourne.

The racing clubs in Sydney and in Melbourne believe their rights are being priced too cheaply and that Sky is making too much money – about $26 million in 2003 and they want a lot of that.

So do the pubs and clubs, who think fees of up to a reported $1200 a week are way too high. But then in NSW in particular, it’s a service, seeing how much the value of pubs have risen with the Carr government’s capitulation on poker machines.

Folk with long memories are wondering if the Sydney clubs manage to get their way and fight off Sky or reach some
sort of deal, that with the Melbourne clubs on board, Murdoch will be able to push racing into Foxtel through Fox Sports (which will contract the coverage to Foxtel, replacing Sky) and thereby open up a potential revenue stream in interactive gambling.

Telstra might not be happy at being gouged once again by the Murdoch-Packer owned Fox Sports, but the telco also believes that online/interactive gambling will be one of the drivers for its broadband business in coming years.

Ian Frykberg makes things happens in difficult situations. He isn’t one of Rupert Murdoch’s most trusted negotiators for nothing and his appearance in the argie-bargie has given it a new dimension.

Frykberg is a man of many hats and has become wealthy as a result of his abilities. It’s no wonder TAB CEO, Warren Wilson is fighting to the last man. He probably senses the forces of the Sun King are being massed against him

And watch the rights brawl for the 2005 Ashes cricket tour of England. Frykberg negotiated the rights for Australia for Fox Sports. Will Packer’s Channel 9 telecast them or will they remain on Pay TV? Australian winter is prime TV time given the cricket starts at 8pm our time. Packer hasn’t been eager to show them in the past and lost out to Channel 7 three years ago. But Packer’s agreement with cricket Australia will require him to show the Ashes or lose the rights to Australian cricket: that’s why the series with Bangladesh were shown last year.

But racing is the immediate game and whatever you think, Ian Frykberg is a more subtle and successful negotiator than rugby player. And he delivers for Rupert so watch this space.