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SBS would have you believe it is the home of football coverage in Australia. It is a warm sentiment which harks back to the days of yore, but the reality is the network has much to do to make up ground on rivals Fox Sports.
The recent announcement that Fox Sports had purchased the rights to broadcast Spanish and Italian football – more on Serie A later – came as the Special Broadcasting Service prepared to ramp up its coverage of the A-League.
A lack of free-to-air exposure has been the Achilles’ heel of A-League coverage for the competition’s eight-season existence to date.
All that will soon change, as SBS gears up to host one live Friday night game per week – starting with this Friday’s crackerjack clash between Sydney FC and visitors Newcastle.
SBS will broadcast the evidently light-hearted Thursday FC as a precursor to the main event, as the supposed spiritual home of football makes a belated entrance to the A-League party.
It’s a far cry from the first years of the competition, when tuning into an SBS football program resulted in a cursory mention of the A-League at best.
It appeared certain pundits didn’t take too kindly to the fact that Fox Sports had paid for the rights to broadcast the A-League exclusively.
For years SBS has cried poor – even introducing advertising to help pay the bills – and it’s no coincidence that broadcasters like Simon Hill and Andrew Orsatti have furthered their careers elsewhere.
But as much as a lack of cash may have hindered their coverage – has anyone read The World Game site since Jesse Fink was axed? – so too has the niggling feeling there’s a bit of a fiefdom at work.
Log on to Twitter to discuss the finer points of any A-League encounter, and chances are certain SBS personnel will be dictating like Moses from Mount Sinai the virtues of Barcelona’s youth system.
Flick on the TV and the UEFA Champions League likewise clearly captivates, while in the past A-League analysis has been offered in the sort of comatose-inducing monotone that would put a giraffe to sleep.
European football clearly holds sway – you’d hardly know SBS has one of Asian football’s most influential journalists on their books – and for a long time the A-League struggled to get a look in.
Which makes Fox Sports’ decision to broadcast La Liga and Serie A all the more intriguing.
It’s a network which has largely gone the other way since the A-League kicked off, catering predominantly to an Anglo-Australian audience with its coverage of the English Premier League.
So prominent has its EPL coverage been, that between it and the A-League you could almost forget that football was even played outside English-speaking countries.
Which makes the move for Spanish and Italian football seem all the more like Fox is thumbing its nose at its new free-to-air football rival.
That Fox is having trouble tying up the Italian deal speaks volumes for the delusions of grandeur Serie A officials cling to.
Once a first-rate league now fallen on hard times, with dwindling attendances, decrepit stadia and ageing outfits whose best players invariably leave for foreign leagues, Serie A missed the boat on modernisation and has been playing catch-up ever since.
Perhaps it’s an apt metaphor, because despite the flashy ads and colourful variety shows, SBS too may need to do a bit of work to win over A-League fans.
Their new partnership with FourFourTwo – now the only dedicated football magazine in the marketplace – could help sew up a few more casual fans.
In the end, there is no doubt free-to-air coverage helps increase A-League exposure in millions of households not connected to pay television.
But there’ll be plenty of interest in how SBS goes about the job, with the first shots arguably already fired in a new football culture war.