The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is due to decide on September 10 whether to allow Foxtel - jointly owned by News Corp and Telstra - to take a 15 per cent shareholding in Ten but Nine chief executive David Gyngell headed off future opposition from a combined Ten/Fox Sports bid for all eight NRL matches by moving to secure the free-to-air rights before the ruling is handed down.

Despite complaints that Fox Sports were not properly consulted about the broadcast negotiations, it has been revealed that there were 35 occasions in which the NRL and Fox Sports had some form of contact over the rights - either through phone calls, meetings, presentations or emails.

The current deal was a joint bid by Nine and Fox Sports that the ARL Commission only agreed to after News Corp surrendered a first and last right of refusal clause on the broadcast rights until 2027 and there were concerns this time that Fox Sports wanted Ten as its free-to-air partner, and was waiting for the ACCC ruling before making a genuine play.

With News Corp co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch also owning an eight per cent stake in Ten and having previously been acting CEO of the network, the ACCC is investigating concerns about the impact the merger would have on Australian sporting rights.

Fairfax Media last month reported details of a proposal whereby Ten would receive one of the five NRL match per week Fox Sports currently broadcasts in the next rights deal, with Nine to retain the three games it now has on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons.

However, Nine doubled its $90 million per year investment to $185 million per year in return for four matches to be broadcast each week on Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon from 2018.

Nine also agreed to allow the NRL to sell the simulcast rights for those four matches to Fox Sports so the pay-TV network could broadcast all eight games per week live in a similar deal to the one it has with the AFL, but Nine also has the option to on-sell those matches to other networks.

As a result, there has been speculation that Ten may still end up with the Saturday night match in an arrangement that would effectively be the free-to-air network simulcasting a Fox Sports match.

However, News Corp media reports claim the company wants control of the Saturday night match to maintain Fox Sport's Super Saturday franchise as a condition of returning to the negotiating table with the NRL and would in turn offer Nine a weekly AFL game.

The NRL's decision to finalise the free-to-air rights agreement with Nine angered News Corp executives - headed by Rupert Murdoch - and earned the AFL a massive windfall in the form last week's $2.5 billion six year broadcast deal, of which News is believed to have committed $1.3 billion.

Murdoch and News Corp chief executive Robert Thompson also promised to throw the resources of the media empire behind AFL and the deal has been followed by a flood of negative stories about the NRL and chief executive Dave Smith in the News-owned media, including Fox Sports.

To many, the coverage has been a throwback to the Super League war but the difference between now and the mid-1990s is social media and Penrith general manager Phil Gould was among the NRL club bosses to use Twitter in recent days to hit back at some of the reporting.

"Fox involved in months of negotiations, don't believe what you read," Gould tweeted. "NRL documented more than 35 meetings and calls they had with Fox and News. Sounds like consultation to me."

Gould also agreed that Fox Sports may have been waiting for the ACCC ruling, tweeting: "Fox were certainly keeping options open on a free-to-air partner, which is probably why 9 offered such a great deal".

He also backed Smith, saying he had the support of all 16 clubs but needed "assistance", and praised him for negotiating "the biggest free-to-air deal in history".

"NRL was underpaid for many years because News owned the game. AFL has never had that problem," Gould tweeted.