At 2:30pm this afternoon, the AFL is expected to announce its most lucrative payday, ever. The AFL is expected to announce the finalized sale of its new TV rights – for the next five seasons – worth more than $1 billion.
The exact details of the deal, which we see Foxtel, Channel Seven and Telstra control the AFL Broadcast rights until 2016, are not yet fully known.
However, the basic breakdown of the agreement is:
But enough with astronomical numbers. The real question is, what does this all mean for footy fans?
The most obvious talking point is that due to having the controlling stake in the rights, Foxtel will now be able to show every single AFL game live, except for the grand final.
This has led Foxtel to announce a new station – Foxtel AFL – which will be a dedicated AFL channel, allowing customers to watch every single game of the AFL Season, live.
Channel Seven, meanwhile, will control the broadcast of four games each week, with plans to sell as many as two of those contests, either to Channel Nine or Ten.
However, Channel Seven executives have been adamant in their comments that they will only sell games for the right price, and if a substantial offer is not made, they will be more than happy to broadcast all four games.
The biggest change to Channel Seven’s telecast, will be that Friday night football will now be shown live, each week on the network.
The delayed telecast of Friday Night Football has been an issue of much contention, but it appears a compromise has been reached. The AFL has agreed to push the first bounce back slightly to accommodate Channel Seven, but has done so on the back of contractual obligations stating the network must show the match live.
This is a massive change from the current AFL programming set-up.
The announcement of the new broadcast deal, comes on the back of an absolute bumper round, in terms of AFL broadcast figures.
The ANZAC Day blockbuster between Collingwood and Essendon drew almost 1.5 million viewers, a jump of over 300,000 from last year’s clash. Also, it is reported that the Geelong-Hawthorn clash drew over one million viewers nationally.
After some pundits had recently claimed that AFL ratings were in a steady decline, these most recent figures clearly rebut any claims of a downturn.
Yet another important element of the new rights deal is how it will affect the negotiations between the AFL and its players, as they work towards a new collective bargaining agreement. It would seem that players are well within their rights to expect to receive a windfall from this bumper day for the AFL, and have reported requested that they receive 27 per cent of all future AFL revenue, a number which will surely jump on the back of this new deal.
However, one thing remains clear in the wake of the deal.
AFL is, and will almost certainly continue to be, the biggest game in town.
The new TV rights deal will only further saturate the market, with broadcasters striving to maximize the return from their purchase. Expect to see masses of Foxtel AFL advertisements, as the pay TV broadcaster will attempt to use this new trump card, to bring in more subscribers.
But ultimately, I think it is a good deal for fans.
The days of waiting until 8:45pm on a Friday night for the first bounce will be long gone, and all fans will have the ability to watch every game of the round, without delay and with unprecedented coverage.
Sounds like win-win to me.
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