Can SBS raise the A-League’s profile?
Columnist By Davidde Corran, 18 May 2010 Davidde Corran is a Roar Expert
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- A-League, ACL, Asian Champions League, football, SBS, World Football
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There was an interesting offshoot to the discussion on Mike Tuckerman’s article on this very site about the rising prominence of the Asian Champions League last week.
With one member of The Roar community, Hoolifan, commenting that “sticking (The ACL) on Foxtel so only a fraction of the potential audience can view it” was a “funny way to promote a sport”, the point was made that SBS should seriously consider broadcasting Asian Champions League matches not already covered by Fox Sports.
That idea got me both commenting and thinking, but now I’d like to push the discussion even further to a topic that is always highly controversial on this website: could broadcasting the A-League on SBS help raise the competition’s profile?
Firstly let me mention my “conflicts of interest”. My work as a freelance football journalist often sees me working for both Fox Sports and SBS (not to mention a range of other publications and media outlets). However, as I said in the comments section of Mike’s article last week, I’m not sure whether having interests in both sides of the debate makes me bias or objective!
Still I’m going to put this idea out there and leave it open for discussion as I think it’s a fascinating topic.
Now, it might seem an odd time to bring up the A-League TV rights as attention across the country turns towards the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. Instead, I’d argue now is the perfect moment.
When I was back in Australia over Christmas, I came across some old newspaper cuttings of mine. One that caught my eye was a piece taken from the front page of The Age’s 1st of June 2002 edition. It was a captivating article on the opening game of the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
Of course, the beauty, in more ways then one, was in the detail: this article was written by the Senior Football Writer for England’s The Daily Telegrpah, the talented Henry Winter.
Eight years on and you can bet The Age, along with pretty much every other publication and media outlet in the country will be sending their own journalists to South Africa. Considering the continuing fluctuations within the media industry, it is another sign of the tournament’s increasing relevance to an Australian audience.
Only surpassed by the Socceroos themselves, I have no doubt that SBS’ continuing coverage of the World Cup has been a major factor in driving the profile of the tournament in this country.
Would 16 years of The World Cup receiving the kind of commercial network coverage in Australia that the Australian Open is still suffering from have brought us to this very same point? Let alone taken us even further?
(http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/01/31/channel-7-has-stifled-this-years-australian-open/)
The final caveat to all of this is that Fox Sports have done and continue to do a great job of broadcasting the A-League. For their part, I doubt the A-League would be where it is if it wasn’t for Fox Sports brave investment in the game back in 2005.
Yet, while I could be wrong, I suspect it would be in everyone’s best interest including Fox Sports, for at least some portion of the A-League to receive Free To Air coverage.
So to those who doubt whether SBS can help the A-League take the next step up, consider this: if SBS has managed to almost single-handily raise the profile of the World Cup in this country, why couldn’t they do it for our domestic competition?
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- A-League, ACL, Asian Champions League, football, SBS, World Football
May 18th 2010 @ 1:58pm
Art Sapphire said | May 18th 2010 @ 1:58pm | Report comment
Here is the A- League fixture for 2010-2011
The season will kick off – Thursday, 5 August 2010 Melbourne Heart vs. Central Coast Mariners at AAMI Park
http://www.a-league.com.au/site/_content/document/00001664-source.pdf
May 18th 2010 @ 3:47pm
whiskeymac said | May 18th 2010 @ 3:47pm | Report comment
Saturday 2 October the first game between the Melbourne sides? i saw the roar games are subject to venue change… where wld they go?
May 18th 2010 @ 4:20pm
The Link said | May 18th 2010 @ 4:20pm | Report comment
Ballymore?
May 18th 2010 @ 4:23pm
whiskeymac said | May 18th 2010 @ 4:23pm | Report comment
fair enough. it seems all their home games were asterisked like that (ie subject to change) i assume it cant be clashes with military tattoos or NRL or s15… club looking for a new stadium?
May 18th 2010 @ 4:26pm
AndyRoo said | May 18th 2010 @ 4:26pm | Report comment
I only see 2 Roar games and one Skilled Park game (the season start) in blue.
May 18th 2010 @ 3:35pm
whiskeymac said | May 18th 2010 @ 3:35pm | Report comment
does anyone know what the comparative viewing figures (not potential but actual) of SBS are versus Foxtel? is it such a massive difference or really not quite so large.
If it is the latter then its a no brainer – go with Fox$. as much as i love the HAL, it is the socceroos people like. As per the wallabies and baggy greens.
If Cahill and mates are FTA and the HAL can still extract reasonable cash, no matter if confined to fox or not, that seems a good deal to me.
of course if some of the HAL was on FTA i wld be happy…. and wld give up the foxtel quicker than that. but that’s having your cake and eating it too. and so far it seems to me that only the AFL and NRL seem to be able to do that.
May 18th 2010 @ 3:52pm
Moonface said | May 18th 2010 @ 3:52pm | Report comment
The highest ever rating sports show on Foxtel FoxSports was the Socceroos v Japan WC Qualifier at 420K.
The highest ever rating sports show on FTA, the Socceroos v Japan WC match in 2006 on SBS was 7.1M, according to Roy Morgan Research.
Huge difference – the FTA market is ten times bigger or more.
Any sport that has FTA and is on the anti-siphoning list like AFL and NRL have a huge advantage.
Is SBS the right station or will the A-League rate enough to be prime time on commercial TV is another debate, but you’ll never know until you try.
SBS would have no problems showing the A-League at a decent hour, but the commercial stations are driven by much higher ratings standards.
May 18th 2010 @ 4:17pm
whiskeymac said | May 18th 2010 @ 4:17pm | Report comment
The socceroos are FTA gold. hopefully the ballackless german match will deliver an equally massive audience, and result, for us =)
am i right in saying that SBS get 5%, or thereabouts, of the FTA pie? that shortens the difference between audience and $ for non socceroo games.
May 18th 2010 @ 4:32pm
Moonface said | May 18th 2010 @ 4:32pm | Report comment
Good question.
SBS ratings are around 2-3 when the commercial stations ratings are about 20-30 so maybe 10% of the FTA pie. You’d get much more money from the commercial stations, especially if it was a ratings winner.
Another question would be would the Soceroos still rate highly on commercial TV with Fatty Vaughtin, Sterlo, Bruce McEveny, Eddie Maguire or the like commentating/presenting and not the expert SBS commentary team.
The olympic soccer rated very well on 7 (20-30), but there were a lot of complaints about the un-educated commentators.
May 18th 2010 @ 5:38pm
md said | May 18th 2010 @ 5:38pm | Report comment
Unless SBS can attract enough advertising dollars cover production costs and a weekly magazine show plus beat whatever $$ foxtel are willing to put on the table, it cannot happen. The net effect would be that the A-league is being funded through taxpayer dollars. That is something that both the TV networks and other codes would be rightly annoyed about.
May 18th 2010 @ 5:21pm
Midfielder said | May 18th 2010 @ 5:21pm | Report comment
Football has a number of different products to sell each with their own value..
Nine national sides,
The Asian champion’s League,
A-League domestic competition
W-League domestic competition
Hopefully soon an FA Cup…
Each will draw an audience .. when to go FTA is the question… RU ARC took a bath as the product was to poor for FTA coverage and it affected the general brand of RU…
The more important question is the A-League of a good enough quality to go FTA …
Without question the Socceroo’s are … and I dare say the under 23 squads and the Olympic games as well..
We need to sit back and say .. is the current quality of the A-League ready for its TV launch..
May 18th 2010 @ 5:27pm
con said | May 18th 2010 @ 5:27pm | Report comment
spot on i agree, air the blockbusters ie. vic v syd, vic v heart, adelaide v vic, roar v gcu, central coast v newcastle on prime time fta tv. let all football fans see our domestic league, not just the ones with foxtel. sbs would pump it up and do a fantastic job
May 18th 2010 @ 9:14pm
matty1974 said | May 18th 2010 @ 9:14pm | Report comment
I would rather pay for A league on Fox and get to see it live, uninterrupted and with the likes of Simon Hill and Paul Trimboli commentating, than ever watch it on FTA if it is treated the same way that Channel 7 has treated it’s coverage of the game in the past.
Having said that I think SBS showing the ACL would be nice, it would showcase a higher level of football for the wider potential audience on FTA.
Socceroos absolutely need to be on FTA.
An A league 1 hour highlights show and the Grand final are all I think should be on a mainstream FTA channel.
May 18th 2010 @ 9:15pm
M1tch said | May 18th 2010 @ 9:15pm | Report comment
SBS would lower the profile of the sport
May 18th 2010 @ 11:20pm
Hoolifan said | May 18th 2010 @ 11:20pm | Report comment
Interestingly, I come from an Anglo background, in a non soccer mad region of Oz. Noone was interested in the sport.
BUT, in my house, I lived in a valley, there was only 2 channels you could get clearly for years. The ABC and SBS.
So I watched a lot of SBS. Learned a lot about women, how to pick ‘em up and about soccer. So much so, I’m going to Africa in under 2 weeks. It even got me to live in Europe, see all the big clubs at all the top stadiums and also got a bunch of my Anglo mates on board.
Believe it or not, I had to drag and pay for mates to come with me to the Iran game at the MCG. Ever since, they are fans for life!
And you are telling me that NOT having it on free to air tele is a smart move.
The upside to keeping it on pay tv is it gets us tech savvy people cleverer on how to get the free uplinks of matches. It used to be satellite dishes, now it is over the web on various sharing websites. So much cheaper now.
May 19th 2010 @ 5:03am
Davidde Corran said | May 19th 2010 @ 5:03am | Report comment
Hoolifan, that’s a top story!
May 19th 2010 @ 10:58am
Australian Football said | May 19th 2010 @ 10:58am | Report comment
SBS has and is still the most important TV channel in my TV viewing life––it’s the only channel that I can see Football on with TWG, Les, Foz, Bash and the rest of TWG crew who have so much class over all of those other commercial station’s sports commentators, which has become unmeasurable––they are light years ahead in sophistication and presentation.
Davvide, you are 100% correct when you say SBS’s presentation of the FIFA Football World Cups has put it in the minds of every Australian. At least every Australian knows about the World Cup thanks to SBS––done with style and sophistication and are now doing it with the UCL.
With each of the passing Football World Cup coverage they make, it has become more then just a Football tournament, but also a cultural travelogue experience as well––the best sporting event of the year. The cultural aspects associated with the host nation involved that feature in their Football coverage makes it compulsory viewing. It’s a joy and a great cultural learning sojourn as well.
In saying that, the HAL would also be a resounding success if they had the money to support an Australian Professional Football League––some $300m for 5 years needed. But sadly they don’t have that sort of funds to support the HAL and probably never will.
That does not mean they should have been cruelly cut a drift by the FFA for their reward over the many years that kept Australian Football alive over those dark days in Australia.
What happen with the FFA and Fox TV deal was a disgrace. Where John O’Neil and Frank Lowy brokered a TV deal that excluded a short affordable HAL TV highlight package for SBS was a disgraceful.
We have some would say that Fox took a big gamble to take on Australian Football. Well I would say to that, it was SBS who took the greater gamble to stick with Football when no one else would and Fox have reaped the rewards of what the late Johnny Warren and Les Murray supported by SBS did for Australian Football.
The real heroes here are the SBS Corporation not FOX, who have been just merely opportunistic. Football was always going to be a success under the new regime in accordance with the Crawford report.
_____
AF
May 19th 2010 @ 5:52pm
Cpaaa said | May 19th 2010 @ 5:52pm | Report comment
SBS and I are partners for life. If I had to choose just 1 channel, I honestly would not miss any commercial channel as long as i had SBS. Better movies, great docos better sport and much prettier news presenters.
i really cant see the difficulty where the “home of football” should be cut out of any future deal. They dedicate more time to to the game, home and abroad, more than any other network. Yet they cant show any australian related matches. Dosnt make sense. SBS must be involved. Whether it be a highlights reel, replayed matches, live matches or even non Australian club ACL matches. From a commercial perspective ( games on the big 3) take your pick, but why not even, what for it…
channel 7. Could channel 7 be a possible venue for football? What if they lost the AFL rights? …. i have my doubts, but it is possible.
But no channel knows Football like SBS and there is so much of it that it is just wrong for Fox to hold all the cards. I would
like to see it shared.possibly like this…
abc: womens football (as i was writing this i just remembered to turn on the tele for the Womens Asian Cup match.)
fox: 80% of HAL fixtures. HAL Clubs ACL matches passing on to SBS other related ACL qualifiesr,keeping the finals
SBS: share with fox non Australian club ACL matches live. Only SBS can the give champions league justice and create the interest needed for such a competition. Shared Australian world Cup qualifiers and friendlies with the other big three.
7,9,10: live friday night matches of HAL, National team games when playing in Australia
first half our Women are leading 1-0 over Vietnam
May 19th 2010 @ 7:08pm
Ben of Phnom Penh said | May 19th 2010 @ 7:08pm | Report comment
Whilst a station like SBS can indeed raise the profile of the sport it will need to be balanced with the need to finance the game. Hence it is a matter of how much promotion can be done by FTA such as SBS before serious commercial harm starts to be done to the pay tv rights holder.
A situation needs to be developed where both parties can work in synergy. By that I mean SBS has sufficient FTA coverage of the A-League, or ACL, to whet viewer’s appetites and hence perhaps increase the number of people prepared to pay for a full package. FTA can draw in the casual viewer and turn them into fans. This is important as only fans fork out the money to enjoy the full package. Hence people who can’t afford pay tv can enjoy some football, some casual viewers can become fans and pay tv can get more customers.