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In the corner of my local pub, there is a very, very small TV showing Gold Coast United take on Brisbane Roar in the first round of the 2010-11 A-League season.
Every other TV in the place, including the massive screen in the main bar, is showing the business end of the AFL season and one large screen is devoted to a replay of a previous round.
The A-League clash was put on only after a much pleading with management to undertake the onerous task of finding the box that TV was connected to and changing the channel.
If I wasn’t a tragic I would have given up. If only the game was on free-to-air TV (FTA) and people like me could watch the round-ball game at zero cost from the comfort of my lounge chair.
Federal Communications Minister and Chelsea fan Stephen Conroy is close to releasing the long-awaited changes to the Anti-Siphoning list.
The list is a best described as protectionist legislation in a free market for the supposed benefit of the sport-viewing public. Pay-TV was in its infancy when it was drawn up in the late 1990s and the FTA networks argued that sport should not be for a privileged few. It also meant the FTA networks’ massive advertising-driven profits from sports broadcasting were protected.
According to some reports, previously excluded Socceroos World Cup qualifiers will be added by 2013. That’ll increase exposure and drive up interest in the game, right?
When kiddies see Tim Cahill score a last-gasp winner for the Socceroos they’ll be outside in their droves trying to emulate his heroics. Monday’s office talk will turn from Jarryd Hayne’s jinking runs to whether Socceroos coach Holger Osieck was right to give Scott McDonald another chance.
Be careful what you wish for.
For years, the game was readily available on FTA but no-one could argue that its exposure enhanced the game’s value to the average punter, let alone convince media moguls and corporate sponsors to open their wallets (in fairness, the demise of the NSL can’t be laid solely at the feet of those responsible for broadcast, but that’s another topic).
When Football Federation consigned the NSL to dust bin of history in response to the Howard Government’s Crawford Report, Pay-TV network Foxtel reportedly forked out $120 million for a deal through to 2013.
Despite the football community’s love for the game, there has been no suggestion any of FTA-land’s big players wanted it. For Fox, exclusivity of Socceroos games is the cherry on top.
Fans will flock to pubs, live sites or mates’ houses to watch a ‘roos game but not even the most romantic football fans can argue the same would happen when, say, Sydney play Perth.
The interest is simply not yet there and until it is splitting the package of Socceroos games, A-League serve only to undermine its collective value reducing the money that finds its way to the A-League.
Without Fox, there would be no A-League.
If FTA want the league, fine, but that should be driven by demand and demand alone. If the game is picked up as a cheap afterthought the quality of programming will suffer and with it the league.
SBS has long been a flag-bearer for the game but it simply cannot compete when it comes to dollars and cents. Seven flirted with the game in the early noughties (a 10-year deal worth $2.5 million a year) and it was a disaster with broadcast limited to late-night highlights of the NSL on its pay-TV arm C7.
It wanted ‘roos games only, leading to an impasse weeks out from start of the 2002-03 season.
By comparison, Fox currently buys its AFL content from the FTA rights holder. In theory, Fox could on-sell one A-League match per round and that would add value to the game through a window of increased exposure.
But that it does not suggests that the value of the “product” based on viewer ratings is not at a level where the money earned would offset loss of viewers and advertising for that particular game.
That assumes an FTA network would be interested in a Match of the Day scenario and also assumes it won’t butcher programming quality. As its stands, Fox has shows every game live and without the annoyance of cutting to an ad when the ball is out of play.
Without a doubt fans should have equal and affordable access to major sporting events including the national teams of all sports. The circuit-breaker might just be the 2022 World Cup bid that will pique interest but the current deal allows professional league to exist and provides a base for it to grow to the point where FTA might be interested in picking it up.
Right now, that can’t be a bad thing.
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