“Stan Sport has traditionally been driven by rugby, UEFA Champions League, and by tennis grand slams, so this single event of the Olympic Games, with the Paralympics to come, has lifted that sub base by over 50 per cent in a very short space of time. It’s certainly exceeded the expectation that we’d set in terms of sub numbers,” Sneesby said.

“What we have demonstrated is that where we have a partnership with a sporting rights holder or a sporting body, our ability to amplify the audience across platforms is certainly something we have great success in.”

The event’s success gave the company confidence to invest further going forward, he said, be that in content, sport, journalism or other future opportunities to drive audiences.

Sneesby said it was too early to comment on whether it would have a positive impact on the looming NRL rights negotiations, in which Nine is expected to compete for the free and paid component. However, it showed the company could amplify the audience of a sporting partnership across a number of platforms, he said.

The company said Stan obtained its highest viewing day ever since the launch of Stan Sport in early 2021.

Nine’s publishing titles, including The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, nine.com.au and the Wide World of Sports, recorded 214.6 million page views and 77.4 million visits in the 17-day stretch from July 25 to August 12.

A five-day strike by journalists threatened to derail coverage from the mastheads at the beginning of the event, with media attention focusing on the contrasting images of Sneesby carrying the Olympic torch in Paris in the lead-up celebrations.

Sneesby said that was a commitment he had made on invitation from the IOC almost 12 months ago and standard practice for a media company chief executive at the outset of a new rights deal. He said he had been engaged each day with the ongoing negotiations with staff led by “the right leader”, publishing boss Tory Maguire.

“I certainly did not know that that would coincide with the industrial action that was taking place,” he said.

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“Certainly, to do the right thing in terms of those commitments to the IOC, to want to represent the thousands of people across Nine who had put in so much hard work was certainly the right thing to do.

“I’m certainly grateful for everyone who contributed to the continuity through that process, and I’m also glad that we reached an outcome that is positive for all stakeholders.

“As much as I wasn’t the public face of those negotiations, I was very much engaged, very much focused on getting the right outcomes for those people who are represented by the union, as I am always, as a chief executive, looking after the interest of our staff whether they’re part of a union or not.”

Nine’s first week of Olympics coverage delivered the highest national total television reach since VOZ records began in 2021, reaching 17.5 million Australians. Week two was the second highest, reaching 16.6 million. The coverage reached an average audience of 9.9 million each day.

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Reach represents any viewer who accessed the program for at least one minute on broadcast television or 15 seconds on broadcast video on demand, in this case, 9Now.

Nine will deliver its full-year financial results on August 28.

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