How Netflix can give traditional TV sport the flick

The most important thing about sports journalism is that is has to be current. Well, I’m an idiot – I’ve downright failed in that regard.

However, the whole idea of timeliness is a notion that fits in with what I’m about to write.

Last week, Netflix finally arrived in Australia. The big focus had been on the massive television dramas like House of Cards carried on this new media service – but that’s not what interests me. Netflix, and similar ‘on-demand streaming services’ as the technical label goes, could really impact on the current state of sports telecasting in Australia.

So, at the moment there’s a fair few different methods of viewing sport other than live attendance. One can listen to the call on the radio, follow the text of a live blog on The Roar, or most commonly, watch it on TV. All those things that let you watch sport without being there, are called mediated interactions.

I did a media degree at Macquarie University, so all this technological stuff and big words is my bag, baby. Just before I continue, I should make my lecturers happy and make it clear that Netflix isn’t a technology that’s a gift from the gods, here to enlighten us all.

What Netflix is doing is offering consumers a more convenient service, and it and similar companies wouldn’t be able to do that without a host of other technologies and an already underlying widespread appeal of such a service.

What I mean by widespread appeal, is the general trend happening in Australia and other Western countries, towards a more mobile and fluid interaction between media and society. In a time I never lived, mainstream media was mainly of the broadcast type: radio, television, print and so on. Now, media usage is reflecting the general flow of society towards an emphasis on the individual.

I, for instance, have a smartphone with my apps I chose myself.

Right. That’s the telecommunications technology discourse sorted. Time to get it back on track to sport.

At the moment a lot of live sport is consumed via television. Foxtel probably has about ten channels that are dedicated to showing televised sport. Most importantly, income generated from selling television rights has had a massive impact on the coffers of various sports administrations, and thus could be argued to be the most important driver in the professionalisation of sport in the last couple of decades.

However, it’s really not as simple as that. The money for television rights hasn’t been a thread that has managed to unstitch itself from the mind-bogglingly intertwined mesh of society all by itself. By that, I mean I believe that the increasing rights paid for screening sports on television – like AFL or NRL – doesn’t necessarily reflect the popularity of the game, like many fans on The Roar love to smugly suggest.

Arguably, the increasing television rights not only reflect the increasing capitalisation of sports (spreading into new markets, getting the most out of the existing partnerships, etc) but also the fact that television stations and their chosen form of broadcast media, live sport is something that: a) their medium excels at and, b) is becoming more and more important to them as entertainment consumption habits change.

In short, I’ll explain both points.

Televised sport, as it has been defined, most closely reflects the genuine experience of attending the game than any other. It features visual as well as audio elements, both very important (a radio chat show, for instance, works well on radio because visuals aren’t necessary to hear a conversation, and most often the eyes are already hard at work driving the car).

Furthermore, sport has been traditionally attended by groups, as it is a community event. The typical settings of a television in a lounge room or pub corner mediate the traditional intake of sport.

However, broadcast television is losing its convenience in our increasingly fluid world. I don’t really have to explain how someone watching a (foreign) show like Game of Thrones on their iPad whenever they like is far more preferable than waiting for 8pm on a Sunday night to roll around, but that’s a point missed in many, many conversations.

For years, waiting for a precise time slot was the one and only chance of seeing that show. Now, that’s far from the case.

Those two factors have collided into making televised sport the monolith that it is today that will definitely continue to expand, reaching leviathan-esque standards of hyperbole.

In Australia, televised sport for the most part means Fox Sports, even though only about 2.5 million Australians subscribe to Foxtel in some form. All free-to-air stations in Australia carry sport of some kind of live sport but Fox Sports, with the juggernaut of News Ltd/Corp behind it, has its rather fat fingers in the pies of every competition.

Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of Fox Sports. It has done a lot of good things for Australian sport, (like given good initial support to the A-League and the National Rugby Championship), but I could also argue that most of those ‘good things’ are merely coincidental with business interests, and are only slightly altruistic.

It’s just not them, but they are the biggest offenders of the pervasive sports media trend of employing uncharismatic ex-professionals to sit, thighs at right angles, on panels that are hosted by an unbelievably attractive journalism graduate as they discuss nothing more than very shallow talking points, and sensationalise the most obvious of headlines.

That’s why I say they’re only slightly altruistic. For mine, Fox Sports’ modus operandi comes off more as a rent seeker looking to speculate on reflected glory, than a media service that truly adds to the conversation.

The one disadvantage of broadcasting is that it’s a one-size-fits-all deal. The internet, for instance, allows for a more personalised experience. Blogs and sites like The Roar, Zonal Marking, Green and Gold Rugby, the Swiss Ramble, podcasts like The Roar’s The Cheap Seats and The Guardian’s Football Weekly and Cricket World Cup podcast (that a few weeks ago, featured the throaty charms of Roar editor Patrick Effeney), all provide very interesting additions to the wider sports conversation that falls outside the remit of televised sport broadcasts, and indeed most mainstream media sport coverage.

I say all this because the introduction of Netflix to Australia is hopefully an event-horizon sign of the next phase of media consumption in Australia. The concerted use of the digital capabilities to fix gaps of convenience in our society and culture is beginning to slowly bear fruit. For example, think of how Spotify and Bandcamp are servicing the desires of consumers to listen and purchase music with digital convenience major record companies stubbornly refused to offer for years.

A text-based internet platform like The Roar is relatively cheaper to set up than a television service, but hopefully the introduction of Netflix and the raft of other streaming services – like Presto, Stan and the already existing Quickflix – will result in an upheaval of media habits, both in the behaviour of customers and business.

We don’t even need to go that far yet to see what can happen once the encrusted grip major media has on sport in Australia is broken free. Almost by consensus, Channel Ten has reasserted the sports telecasting paradigm in Australia with their wonderful coverage of the Big Bash tournament. Channel Ten offered such a vibrant alternative to Channel Nine’s dour and chokingly over-blokey coverage that the overwhelming positive reaction to 10’s coverage seemed to pour out of the woodwork.

Maybe with the coming influx of on-demand streaming services, not only will us fans be literally afforded a far more convenient avenue to telecast sport, but perhaps there will be a liberalisation and a shake-up of the current televised sports environment.

Not only is there an opportunity for new players to offer new angles on sports telecast – perhaps The Roar could snare the NRC coverage and get Brett McKay’s mug up on tellies nationwide – but there’s also the chance that administrations themselves might fancy their hand at negotiations better.

Perhaps we will also see a greater splitting of the rights among bidders than we do currently. Maybe we will see more competitions shared between more than one or two services.

There have been some sports, games and competitions already sold to streamers, like a football game involving England and Ukraine once was a few years ago. As was stated at the beginning, the coming stream of on-demand streaming services will match the easily predictable widespread urge for more convenience.

This alignment of stars, headed by Netflix, could change televised sport in Australia forever.