There is no question that the future of the A-League is highly dependent on free-to-air television.
Free-to-air television is the staple of organic growth of a sporting organisation. Its ability to reach the wider population is essential in the promotion of our game.
While we NSL and old football diehards are eternally grateful that Fox Sports resurrected our game from its death bed in the early years of the A-League, we need to move away from this highly restricted marketplace.
Effectively, we are now too big for pay TV.
The last reported figure on the total number of Foxtel subscribers, including wholesale subscribers and customers in the installation queue, was at 1.66 million.
This is simply not a large enough supporter base to develop any significant growth in our marketplace. We have moved on from a novelty product to a legitimate premium sport package.
The recruitments of Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton last season and the rise of crowd numbers and social media interaction has proved that the A-League is no longer an ugly duckling in the Australian sporting market.
It is now recognised and even followed by the majority of Australian sporting fanatics. The A-League is here to stay, so we need to embrace this.
The 2011/12 season was not only a success from the rise in crowd numbers, media coverage and profile, but it was a monolithic success in TV ratings. The highly publicised debut of Harry Kewell and subsequent match against Sydney F.C drew the title of the highest pay TV rating A-League match of all time.
That’s right, the highest pay TV rating A-League match of all time, with an audience of 162,417 on Fox Sports.
Also, TV ratings for the 2011/12 season were reported to be up around the 40 percent mark. Now while Harry Kewell has left us for personal reasons, Brett Emerton and other genuine big name players still remain in ever present in our league, proving that the A-League is far from just a one trick pony.
Household coaching names such as Tony Popovic, John Aloisi and Graham Arnold still remain in the game, adding profile and intrigue, while players such as Archie Thompson, Marcos Flores, Shane Smeltz and Fred have become well-known and respected sporting figures nationwide.
Besart Berisha, also known as ‘BB7′ of the Brisbane Roar, has a cult following so potent we may see him in a Neighbours episode soon.
Recently it has been reported that high profile names such as Mark Bresciano, Lucas Neill, Richard Garcia and even Tim Cahill are all in the frame for a future return, with some of these names closer to a return than first thought (Bresh to Heart anyone? Lucas Neill in West Sydney?).
The marvellous addition of a Western Sydney team in the Wanderers has removed the prickly thorn in the Gold Coast and turned it into a growth project, with Western Sydney being a true footballing heartland.
Western Sydney will be a success, there is too much riding on it to not be, and this is a footballing heartland rather than a fickle ‘Hollywood’ town. They have done everything right so far, from the kit, to the signings to the fan interaction. West Sydney is there for more than just making up the numbers.
The A-League derbies, especially in Melbourne and soon to be in Sydney, have become legitimate big ticket items on the Australian sporting calendar, with viewer and crowd numbers skyrocketing on every occasion. They demonstrate the pinnacle of what the A-League is capable of, legitimate market share in the mainstream sporting arena.
Now, what does this have to do with Channel 10? After a recent capital raising, the company has enough funding to launch a successful bid for the upcoming A-League free-to-air TV rights.
While SBS is and always has been the home of the world game for decades in Australia, it does not have the funding to launch a significant bid which could land all games on free-to-air, in fact there are massive doubts that it can afford the one game a week that it has reportedly targeted.
Channel 10 on the other hand may be looking for a premium sporting product, and have the A-League right on their doorstep.
A relationship between the two would be a marriage to benefit both parties. While the A-League may be still a B to B+ proposition, it has A-grade potential. The A-League, with a rapid promotional campaign in conjunction with Channel 10, could well and truly become a premium sporting product within five years.
With proper exposure and 10 teams across the whole nation, the A-League has potential to be a 400,000-500,000-plus ratings puller for the network. Pushing the product into the mainstream, focusing on the big names in the game and the eccentric rivalries would be a catalyst for ratings that could even surprise the network.
Now the original Fox Sports deal featured Socceroos and the A-League and was purchased for a shrewd $120 million, seven-year deal. This surely has to be eclipsed as the game has grown in leaps and bounds from its original inception.
I would love to see a $200 million deal over five years, valuing just the A-League at a cool $40 million a season. Now while this seems a tad ambitious, it is nothing compared to the recent $1 billion AFL rights and upcoming $800 million plus NRL TV rights.
Channel 10 has an opportunity to pick up the rights to a nation-wide game for less than a quarter of the price of other two codes mentioned, which are still not yet nationally loved and embraced.
Now I put the challenge to Channel 10 to seriously look at the A-League as viable player in the sporting market. It has potential to bring benefits to the TV network and grow the game at the same time.
We can only look back on the success of the 2007 LA Galaxy vs Sydney FC exhibition game which drew a very respectable 1.084 million viewers nationwide, so perhaps games with something to play for could even draw more viewers? You never know.
The coverage that night was excellent and showed that Channel 10 could run a more than serviceable product that would indeed even please footballing diehards.
Channel 10 was once the home of ‘footy’. Let’s take it upon them to make it the home of ‘football’; this is something that it is more than capable of.
Cappuccino
Roar Guru
One simply doesn't provide the exposure of a 'main' TV channel- I think even SBS outrates it.
Midfielder
Guest
Fuss Very interesting indeed .... the new players for want of a better word are ... Fetch TV ... Optus & Fetch combined Al Jazeera ESPN Setanta Sports All these broadcasters broadcast football and are used to dealing with football... TBH I would amost prefer assuming the money was there for a Optus / Fetch win and watch via the net .... most people could easly work out how to stream to their TV screens ....
Titus
Guest
So, you can watch Setanta on Fletch? What would be the cheapest you could get the Setanta package for?
Griffo
Roar Guru
Would SetantaAus be considering an A-League rights bid to break into Australian sports broadcasting market further? If the temperature goes up in Sydney a bit, it could be down to the FFA rubbing their hands together over a potential bidding war :-)
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Middy James Willoughby, who is a sports reporter for PERFORM & @SportalAU, a columnist in Leeds Utd's matchday programme & Aussie correspondent on TalkSport UK, Radio Sport NZ & Yorkshire Radio has just Tweeted: @jwilloughby26 Football fans in Australia: Setanta Sports have outbid Fox Sports for the rights to show LIVE Championship & League Cup fixtures in 2012/13 This should have indirect implications for HAL broadcast rights. For SetantaAus to outbid Foxtel, suggests Setanta is becoming a serious subscription broadcaster for football in Australia. Setanta also won the rights to all Euro2012 matches. It also means Foxtel needs more content for the Aussie summer months & Foxtel has more dollars in the kitty. We also know Al Jazeera has become a significant player in the football broadcast market and, only recently, Al Jazeera's channel was added to the Foxtel suite of channels. In the 21st century it will be beneficial to have a global product for global markets.
Jim
Guest
AND the F-League (futsal) AND Street Football (Tiger Street and other competitions to come) AND Beach Football competitions to start up – which will be far more popular than Beach Volleyball OR Beach Cricket combined! (imagine cricket on the beach – what a joke! LOL)
Jim
Guest
"Well going by inflation alone, the $17m per year 8 years ago is $33m per year today." Exactly! So any figure less than $33million per season is selling the rights for LESS than they were sold for in 2006!
Emric
Guest
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/sky-tv-could-face-competition-new-free-air-channel-4960394 Fifa putting their own channel on Freeview and buying the rights to the A-League (they have billions of dollars whats a 40 million a year for 5 years worth to them - would secure the A-League improve exposure. Its a win/win for both fifa and the A-league
Jim
Guest
"for 5 games over 27 rounds + finals, + 18 [at least] ACL + W-League + 10 Socceroo Friendlies, + 10 Matilda’s + 8 U 23, 8 U 20 mens & womens teams + 5 U 17 mens team… with each broadcast lasting for 2 hours .." AND the F-League (futsal) AND Street Football (Tiger Street and other competitions to come) AND Beach Football competitions to start up - which will be far more popular than Beach Volleyball OR Beach Cricket combined! (imagine cricket on the beach - what a joke! LOL)
Jim
Guest
He isn't the CEO of the FFA, Ben Buckley is!
Jim
Guest
LOL, and that same clown - Rupert Murdoch - who backed "super league" to the hilt by "investing" more than $5Billion in trying to turn a LOCAL "turkey" (RL) into a INTERNATIONAL "swan" and landed flat on his face in the process and in which his own shareholders had to carry the loss for his folly! But NOT to be detered he is at it again and threatening to throw another $1Billion of his shareholders money away on trying to save this dead carcuss of a sport that has no chance of ever being relevent to the world! But then again Murdoch and his companies are yesterdays news anyway and are becoming increasingly irrelevent themselves - and good riddance to them I say!
Jim
Guest
"As for the Socceroos – welll that’s a discrace those games have not been on FTA. After the 2006 world cup they were the #1 national sporting team. The minumal exposure on pay tv has bumped them down below netball." Don't you think that perhaps that was the Murdoch strategy all along - to "bury" the sport on pay tv just like Ch 7 did ten years ago - in order to suppress it's exposure and therefore the value of the next tv contract, mmm??? And Uncle Frank walked straight into the trap.
micka
Guest
" Yet, no AFL journo ever presses Demetriou about the unfairness of the AFL competition, or questions the coaches or CEOs of these 2 new & inept sporting clubs." Fuss, from that statement alone it is patently clear you take no notice of AFL media coverage. People are baying for Bluey McKennas beheading. Andrew Demitriou has to be one of the most unpopular blokes in the AFL. Don't make s*** up just to make an argument. You just end up looking incrdibly ignorant and stupid.
tj
Guest
oh dear: "Lets take, for example, a corner. If you had a mandated 30 second break for a TV commercial, the game doesnt change that much". You think this wont make it the laughing stock of the world? changing established FIFA rules to get a couple of bucks? you don’t see it on your EPL because they are so powerful and can on-sell TV rights hence make $$$ through that medium. You see pop up advertising in football games all over the world : asian league, south american local & continental games, etc, internationals . they have funding concerns too but incorporate into the bottom of screen whilst at goal kicks… just another revenue raiser & is perfect solution.
Bondy
Guest
Not a bad idea Ian Whitchurch good post.
Sports Candy
Roar Pro
I remember a while ago, when the NRL introduced a rule that they couldn't show the NRL live in Sydney till the game was sold out or 80% full or something like that. Channel 9 bought thousands of tickets because the Sydney market advertising revnue is huge to them, but the actual attendances stayed about the same.
David
Guest
A good as it sounds to get all A-League games on free to air, it would totally diminish the value of it as a TV product as well as definitely hurt attendance figures at the gate. The best option would be 1 or maybe 2 games per week on FTA, then Fox sports televising the rest. Fox don't have much else to show over the summer period in terms of domestic sport, and they put together a good product with credibility, and most importantly, televise all the games live. On the other hand, the AL doesn't need more than a few games to get into the national consciousness and remember One HD isn't a sport channel any more. The last thing we'd need would be Ten having rights to all the games, then televising them 2 days late at 10 in the morning (exactly like the NBL). If the games get split between Fox and Ten, all games will get live coverage, which is really what we want to happen. Lastly, they shouldn't televise games on FTA in the city where it's being played unless it sells out (or reaches a threshold) to encourage people to attend the game. For example in Brisbane, if a game is being played at Suncorp, if it's scheduled for FTA coverage, Ten (or whoever) shouldn't broadcast it live in Brisbane unless, say 18,000 tickets get sold. They should televise a game from the night before, or play it on delay or something. The NFL do this (see the Blackout policy) and it's a big reason why their television rights are worth so so so much, and they still sell out nearly all their games.
phutbol
Guest
I'm too lazy to try to find it Mid... So what is the netball contract with 10 worth?
Kasey
Guest
AR: There is a danger in just blindly talking figures and not understanding any context behind them. For example those goal.com figures are garbage, for starters they talk of Adelaide United’s decrease, but fail to mention that the one number that dragged down their overall average was the regional round game played in Bathurst somehow classified as a home game, hardly fair to include that figure given the ability of United fans to travel to outback NSW to see their team is it? Removing the Bathurst game demonstrates more accurately the level of support in the Adelaide community for the Reds and pushes the crowd average up into the top half of the table – not bad for a team that finished 2nd bottom! Knowing things like that (AU do not play an 'away from SA' regional round game this new season), and that GCU are no longer around to drag the HAL average down - I’m yet to meet one person who thinks that WSW wont do better through the gate than GCU I find it fairly easy to predict with s good degree of confidence that the HAL is set to demonstrate some really impressive numbers this forthcoming season. I wonder how it will be received if football ‘suddenly’ has a bit of positive news to report. As discussed in the ch10 thread, I expect it to be poo-poohed as unsustainable by those with the most to lose by a successful HAL – the columnists who know next to nothing about the sport!
asanchez
Roar Guru
Well going by inflation alone, the $17m per year 8 years ago is $33m per year today. Sure the Socceroos carrot was huge those days, and the A-league was just a sheet of paper. But today, even with the meaningful Socceroos matches on FTA, I'd argue that the A-league is worth that money and more on its own. We know that the FFA makes $1m per match from the WSG, so by 5 matches per year that's $5m. Sponsors and sponsorship dollars will also increase as they'll get way more exposure on FTA networks. The FFA will need to entice good opposition for home friendlies to get good attendances as another source of revenue. Remembering of course that as host of the Asian Cup in 2015 we won't need to qualify so there'll be less competitive games for the Socceroos in the next few years. Onto the A-league, it's been mentioned many times that FFA wants to cover the salary cap for the clubs. At $2.7m each, that's $27m per year needed just for the salary cap. Add another $10m annually for marketing/promotion of the league, other programs/initiatives and some cash for reserve, give or take, we're up to $40m. The numbers are stacking up though, we're averaging over 10k crowds per game, and about 60k tv viewers per game. As a reference, the AFL gets 35k a game and roughly 200k tv viewers per game. There getting over $250m a year. So on balance, just by those numbers, we should be getting at least a quarter of that ($75m). And that's without taking into account the ACL, a future cup comp, Socceroo friendlies etc. I think the game changer is Western Sydney. They should get good crowds and strong tv ratings. I'm expecting the Sydney derbies to be the biggest tv audience for regular season A-league games ever. The other big difference to when the first tv deal was signed is that it didn't have any scheduled inner city derbies, and we now have both the Melbourne derbies and the new Sydney derby. And we know what the Melbourne derby has become! Things are definetely looking up for our game. Can't wait for next season.