afe66: If amazon or someone else won the right to rugby here they would have to get up their own outside broadcasting teams. But I wonder how much of a issue that would be.

Probably not much actually - it's called contracting out. I think you'll find Sky NZ don't own OSB units in Argentina, Australia, Japan or South Africa. Whether Amazon would want to bother with grass roots rugby would be another matter, but that may actually be a drop in the bucket for them. Come to that, there's not really any reason why they couldn't lease transponder space, unless it's all been brought up.

One of the things I do find a little amusing here is how most people have a New Zealand centric point of view over this. When it comes to sports rights for NZ cricket and rugby, Sky NZ are reselling packages overseas. This will be where places like Amazon (and I hear Facebook is now also investigating acquiring sports rights) will have their eyes fixed as this is where the true money will be. I'd also imagine that Amazon have a far greater international reach than Sky NZ, its parent company, and its affiliates.