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For as long as I can remember football fans have complained about a lack of free-to-air coverage for the game. They’ve bemoaned the unfair advantage given to other codes by Australia’s commercial media to maintain the status-quo.
Those people are right, to really break into the mainstream of Australia’s sporting conscious the game needs a big money deal with a prominent free-to-air television channel.
Yet when the interesting development emerged that Channel Seven has purchased the rights to screen two blockbuster pre-season A-League games the reaction from fans has been mostly hostile.
Football fans are a sensitive lot, and rightly so, history has taught them that when the major commercial media shows an interest in football, it’s usually to the game’s detriment.
Never was this more evident than in 1998 when the television rights to the former National Soccer League were sold to Channel Seven who at one point limited coverage on their main channel to one hour of highlights a week shown after mid-night.
Football fans were livid, and no doubt the head honchos at Seven were disappointed as well, as they had hoped football could have strong enough pull to be the flagship program of their new pay-tv sports channel C7.
But times have changed. With the increased professionalism of Football Federation of Australia and the A-League now an established player in the Australian sporting landscape, for the first time, domestic Australian football might be viewed by free-to-air commercial television executives as an attractive target for major investment.
It’s an interesting time for sports broadcasting in Australia.
Channel Nine’s high profile lovers’ tiff with Cricket Australia has encouraged Channel Ten to bid aggressively for rights to the game which has been the bedrock of Australian summer sports programming since the Kerry Packer revolution of the 1970s.
Should Ten be successful, this would leave a significant gap in the programming schedule of a television network that has traditionally used sport as a foundation of their business model.
This puts the A-League in a desirable position.
Football’s immediate broadcasting future is wrapped up for the next four years with the $160 million dollar deal that will see the rights split between pay-tv channel Fox Sports and SBS.
So while many may see this venture by Seven as a cash grab for a guaranteed ratings winner, it could also be the first toe in the water for a network keen to gage viewer interest in a game fast making ground on the traditional big-guns of Australian sport.
So be careful outraged football supporters, prominent free-to-air television coverage is the last hurdle for the A-League and we don’t want it to put that at risk by convincing boardroom executives that the relationship between fans of the game and commercial television is incompatible.
For the game to grow, we may have to forgive and forget.
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