Are we seeing the first real signs the Australian sporting landscape is being forced to contract under market pressures, in another example that the ‘fringe codes’ are falling further behind the big boys, the AFL and NRL?
V8 Supercars signed off on its new free-to-air television deal with just 47 days remaining before the 2013 season-opener, forced to accept a condensed two-year deal (normal media rights deals are for five years) with long-time broadcaster Channel Seven for $10 million less than the previous six-year arrangement.
This comes at a time when V8 Supercars could take to the market the selling point of the arrival of two new manufacturers, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz, for the first time in two decades, the arrival of motorsport giant Red Bull and the potential coup of MotoGP world champion and household name Casey Stoner joining its ranks.
Throw into the mix the big carrot that is an all-day Bathurst telecast that attracts a wider audience than any other event on the calendar, and it certainly appears worthy of at least matching its former deal
Conversely, though, there are question marks over key Australian marquee events, such as the Sydney Olympic Park street circuit finale and the poor uptake of international expansion.
Even though motorsport can be a tough sell, to an Australian market that questions whether a sport with an engine and without balls and goal posts can be considered a sport, Formula 1 has shown that motorised sports can rate strongly in a prime-time free-to-air slot.
However, how big of a factor in this disappointing result is the fact V8 Supercars was forced to entice the likes of Nine and Seven following their involvement in the billion-dollar deals for the NRL and AFL respectively?
What is left for the fringe codes, at a time when the likes of the Australian football and cricket have taken stronger products onto the market and when Channel Ten is shedding jobs and Nine faced its own financial oblivion last year?
Domestic cricket, once an afterthought, suddenly has a product, the Big Bash League, that can be paired with the international form of the game and provide huge dividends for a free-to-air broadcaster over summer.
With those rights coming up for grabs, and Ten and Nine throwing what they have left at the code, what hope do the likes of V8 Supercars have of drawing more money out of the networks?
V8 Supercars has, intriguingly, committed to a two-year deal partly to get off-schedule with the AFL and NRL and their next round of television rights deals. Though that means it must take its product back to the market in two years, banking on a stronger series to sell and a more vibrant media market.
But there are just three free-to-air commercial networks, two of which are in a consolidation phase; two government subsidized networks hardly flush with the cash to challenge the might of ‘the big three’; and a pay television outlet always eager for sporting content but with a third of the market of the free-to-airs.
With the AFL and NRL in excess of the billion-dollar mark, the days of an even spread of television revenue across all sporting codes appears numbered. The industry can’t keep up with the rate of Australian sporting expansion, which means there is going to have to be some belt-tightening for all codes.
Think of how competitive the sporting market now is as a result of recent expansion. In the summer, for example, the Big Bash League and an expanded A-League have been crammed alongside international cricket, tennis, golf, cycling, basketball and more.
Could the NBL, through its NBLTV subscription-based service, highlight the alternative second tier codes must look to in order to generate revenue while providing content to its fans?
If not, then sports lower down the pecking order are in trouble.
Mark Jones
Guest
V8 Supercar's TV audience may be smaller, but it does have a demographic sweet spot. They can sell V8s to specific advertisers, like Supercheap Auto and charge a higher rate because the fat of people uninterested in their product is greatly reduced.
Mark Jones
Guest
Rugby Union is very definately not top four. AFL, NRL and Horse Racing are unquestionably the top three. Cricket sits at four, with Union some distance below. Crowd figures for Union are some way below motor racing and corporate spend is likewise much higher in motorsport.
Mark Jones
Guest
Think you might find that motor racing might attract different fans. While the joingoistic Holden/Ford dynamic might not like diversification, V8 Supercar will not be able to surivive as a sport long-term if it is completely dependant on a narrow hardcore demographic. That is essentially Rugby Unions problem. They only seem to be able to cater to a narrow audience and are shrinking because of it. V8 Supercar can't afford to follow that example.
Mark Jones
Guest
Additionally Matt, your Formula Ford comment is somewhat dated. 2011 champion Cameron Waters has struggled to make an impression. 2010 champ Chaz Mostert remains in a holding pattern within FPR. 2009 champ and Bathurst winner Nick Percat has dropped back to Carrera Cup, unable to find a place despite generous HRT support. 2008 champ Paul Laskazeski has retired from the sport as has 2005 champ Daniel Elliott. 2006 champ John Martin thankfully made it to Europe following the trail of Mark Webber and Will Power. 2007 champ Tim Blanchard finally graduated to a full time drive this year after five years hovering in Carrera Cup, the Development Series and acting as a super-sub for injured drivers. Formula Ford progression to V8 Supercar hasn't been a 1or 2 year progression since the early 2000s. Erebus Motorsport szinged German driver Maro Engel and against expectations Garry Rogers has re-signed Frenchman Alex Premat despite being in years past the greatest supporter of Formula Ford talent having promoted Garth Tander, Jason Bargwanna, Steven Richards and Jamie Whincup from their ranks. Rogers also signed youngster Scott McLaughlin it was only after he'd spent a couple of seasons in the Development Series and not having raced Formula Ford at all. Even a driver of the undoubted ability as Daniel Reynolds has had a somewhat tortured progression. The other new signing, Scott Pye, had his big year in Formula Ford back in 2009. It seems its easier to get to Europe or US these days from Formula Ford as the efforts of Mitchell Evans, Richie Stanaway, Matthew Brabham, Nick Cassidy and Geoff Uhrhane show. Once it seemed staying in Australia was the "safer" option for Formula Ford graduates. No longer the case now.
Mark Jones
Guest
Abu Dhabi GP support has ended. 2012 Grand Prix support race was hardly a success. With the ending of the Bahrain race two years ago it appears V8 Supercar's Middle East experiment may have permanently ended. Singapore GP continues to be a small 'r' rumour despite going back three years since first mooted. Having salted the Earth with Chinese expansion options years ago and the FIAs "nothing west of Turkey" edict, further Formula One association is extremely limited. Malaysia and Japan are unlikely, former for lack of relelvance, later because despite presence of Nissan, V8 Supercar is too close in look to local international formulae Super GT. Similarly Brazil's V8 Stock car series prevents that option. India remains a possibility, but remains a "be careful what you wish for" option as the behavior of the BCCI demonstrates. This leaves USA/Canada. However NASCAR is fiercely protective of its home market, and is unlikely to tolerate any expansions beyond tokenism of Circuit of the Americas appearance as the new circuit needs to create an audience.
Mark Jones
Guest
Annual subscription services are fine if you already have an audience, but difficult to grow your audience as new viewers are prevented from becoming casual viewers. Boxing went to a subscription model back in the 1980s with pub television and the sports profile plummeted to unrecoverable levels to the point now when the only boxers who gain mainstream media coverage in Australia are celebritiy footballers like Mundine and Williams.
Martyn50
Roar Rookie
Just to let eastern staters know that CH9's coverage of 1 day cricket into Perth is still on 3 hr delay. Archaic.
Mat Coch
Roar Guru
Not much more to tell at this stage. V8's support F1 at AGP and Abu Dhabi. That could expand to one or two more races in coming years. Speaking with someone in the know yesterday suggested the category has little to no penetration in Europe. Teams would rather hire the Formula Ford champion than a proven international race winner. As much as the organisers are trying to go global, the teams themselves seem unwilling to bring in the international drivers. There is little interest in Europe as a result, so backing is hard to find.
Matt
Guest
Exactly. Random week ratings (only one I opened, not through investigation) - http://www.oztam.com.au/documents/2012/OzTAM-20120108-EMetFTARankSumCons.pdf Cricket has 835,000, 1.2 million, 1.3 million. Assuming your 300-400k figure, that's 3-4x less than cricket, PLUS cricket is often during the day midweek as well, vs V8 which is on a weekend when a lot more people are around. Even Border Security has 800,000. I can't imagine that's a big budget show, yet it pulled in 2 times as many viewers.
Matt
Guest
Too expensive. I make decent money, $60 a month for 1 box is too much (basic package + sports). Want 2 HD boxes, $80-100 a month, can't remember exactly. I don't want to pay $1000 a year to watch sport when 7 covers almost every AFL game live, 9 plays three NRL games a week plus all the tests & origin, and the replays for other games are online 2 days later. If the sport offered a subscription service for $100-200 a year for every game in good quality live, then I'd buy it. Until then, free for me.
Matt
Guest
I watch union out of habit, that's about it. The game isn't as enjoyable as League, it's a lot slower, often the ref thinks 50 penalties a game is a good number, and Australia is yet to realise that when you have a 4 man overlap on the wing, you do not dummy then run back inside.
Matt
Guest
CH9, Fox etc subcontract these guys? Cricket & NRL they have a commentary team. I can't remember what other sports CH9 even has. For random games or small tournaments makes sense to get a contract commentator in.
LukeC
Roar Rookie
The cars Australians buy have never come from so many different companies. Having a Ford v Holden may be great for people who grew up buying only Falcons or Commodores, but in the current day and age, V8 Supercars needs to move on to bigger and better things. Including more makes/brands is the right option. It is a risk but without risk, the category is doomed. With Holden having 17 of the 28 cars, even the traditional rivalry is average. Having cars by Nissan, Mercedes-AMG and others in the future will, to an extent, increase interest from people who drive those cars day-to-day. Because the Car of the Future idea will work, signing a two-year deal is a good bet, . The TV rights (both Australasian and international) will substantially increase for the 2015-2019 seasons
Kylesy STID
Guest
How on Earth is there a probably about it? Have a look at attendance figures, viewing figures and participation rates... How much more damning evidence do you need? :lol: If you need to go further then; the A-league is absolutely flying after a couple of lean seasons, whilst when ARU tried to get a national level competition off the ground lasting barely 10 weeks it crumbled and had a record attendance of 5000 - lower than the lowest A-league home crowd of the season this year... But continue thinking football hasn't been ahead of Union for 3-4 years now :) It's serving Australia well to be full of such indecisiveness.
Timmuh
Roar Guru
Australian Football, Rugby League, Cricket and probably Association Football would be bigger sports nationally.
Pete #205
Guest
Matt, there are but a handful of production companies that do ALL sports production across FTA and pay TV. In some cases, the commentators aren't even employed by Channel 9 etc, it's yet another layer of companies. Upshot, there'll be someone to produce the coverage, even without Fox, 9 etc.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
The biggest mistake some commentators make is assuming that free to air sports rights money is a fixed size pie, and if networks pay more for one sport then they're going to have to pay less for others. That shows a misunderstanding of how those networks make money off sport. By far the largest source is direct advertising during sports telecasts. Generally, the larger the audience the larger the money they make, irrespective of how popular other sports are. The bottom line for the V8's is that if they want decent coin from FTA networks they need to deliver better audiences. And the reality is that they don't even get remotely near the people watching that the AFL and NRL do, and should probably be grateful they get the FTA exposure that they do. The national audiences of around 3-400k that they seem to attract (outside Bathurst) make them a borderline prospect for FTA TV at best.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
I find it funny that on one hand the AFL are criticised for being such a small fish on the world stage, yet others criticise them for expanding. Really, the AFL are out to expand their patch, just like every other sporting body. It just so happens that they're better at it than anyone else in this country.
Johnno
Guest
I have a different take on this. I don't think the aussy market or sporting landscape has reached full market saturation. Still not enough aussies have pay tv. Foxtel have tv slots they would love to fill. Mid week matches will start to become more common to i predict. It's already happening now with monday and thrusday night NRL happening this year. Talk of the toyota cup being moved in prime time mid week. What will happen is more like in the USA model. -USA approximatley 300 million people. -365 days a year, 7 days or nights a week of sport. Every night every day of the year, just about there is some team sport in the USA. -MLB,MLS,NBA,NFL,NHL, and Nascar , Indy car, college basketball, college basketball, PGA golf, and a bit of ATP/WTA tennis going on. You could become a total couch potato if you want too in the USA. Here the aussy market is much smaller 22 million, but growing population, and more people to buy foxtel, i still think the market has a long way to go before it reaches saturation.
Hansie
Guest
What about John Howard throwing money at St George to rebuild Kogarah?