The next A-League TV deal should not be about money

Provided that Seven's TV Rights for Melbourne Cup Carnival or Australian Open Tennis tournament turn sour.

According to OzSham's figures............................NOT reality!

"This old argument again. Give the content away cheaply?" - Exactly Fadida. What this author is proposing is simply ridiculous................................. essentially he asking the game to take a gigantic leap of faith in the good faith of the MSM and accept far less than TRUE market value NOW - ie. by that I mean NOT a LOW value calculated by the MSM themselves, based ENTIRELY upon their OWN dodgy, over-massaged OzTam ratings figures - for the POTENTIAL of a HUGE payoff in the future! Their history with Football proves that they cannot be trusted and I prefer to take the money NOW "A bird in hand is worth two in the bush"

Really? People in my social medi circles do it every day. Literally every single day. The hate for the Fox team behind the Mike (see what I did there) is the stuff of football culture. Your football credentials are shaky if this is the first you've heard of this criticism. I assume your on the Fox Footy Chanel watching the premier AFL competition in the world.

Jets Fan The game IS on FTA, on a Friday night no less, and the ratings are absolutely abysmal.

But even some of the Fox Sports on-air team (and whichever producer/director thinks half time interviews are a bright idea) don't get "the subtleties of football" - Mike Cockerill especially. Mark Bosnich gets it, but he's too pompous for my liking.

Having been around for a while now, I can remember the early days of Rugby League on FTA. Let me assure you the early days of League on ABC were very cringeworthy. Those who think FTA will not have much affect on Football, need to look at League. League currently has every game on Fox, but Channel 9 still fall all over themselves to get the League Rights, because that know it rates. There are many who either cant afford Fox or reuse to pay a subscription as well as be bombarded with adds. Get Football on FTA and it will rate as well. Make no mistake, there is a very large portion of viewers out there who will tune into Football if its available and promoted in anything like the way NINE pushes League. A FTA channel prepared to help educate the Australian public to the subtleties of football will drive our sport to levels we have not even dreamed of. It works everywhere else in the world, we are not that different.

What was wrong with my football tips R19? I bet I tipped better than you did.

You're a fan of Kaks? Seriously?!?! How much is he paying you?

Kaks, i'm a big fan of yours. But i think its a bit too simplistic. I only started paying attention to the A-league as a result of the wanderers march to the ACL in 2014. Before then i largely ignored the A-league (along with all Australian sport). So don't underestimate greater exposure which FTA can afford. That's the best way to attract people playing grass roots football and/or those following overseas football. cheers

Lots of people keep saying that the FTA coverage needs to be live. I'm not so sure about that though. Would a half hour delay behind Fox be that bad. People who don't have Fox just need to avoid their phone. The NRL has been doing this for years and years (I assume it still does) although the immediacy of technology hasn't been there in the past which could have become an issue. The other key reason for FTA channels to use a delayed telecast is that they can put more ads in which is a big issue for the commercial stations with live football as it doesn't have the natural breaks that other sports have, reducing the value they can leverage from it. I guess I'm interested in whether people really see 'live' as absolute essential or whether a slight delay could be a good bargaining chip to get more big games onto FTA without Fox losing all of its exclusivity.

That's right Fussyboy. The A-league is for you and people just like you (a small target market, that one). We don't want people watching the league who want to watch the big games, or for the game to attract new fans and grow. Only hard core fans are wanted here. The event watchers, band wagoners, theatre goers, general sports fans and anyone else who doesn't have serious football cred can just move along now.

Simon Hill is good. Andy Harper and Robbie Slater are often cringeworthy but at least bring an element of excitement to the call which David Basheer can't seem to manage. Totally agree about Brenton Speed and Mike Cockerill though. Even worse are some of the commentators they scrounge up for Nix and Perth games (looking at you Jamie Harnwell!) Aytec Genc is good on SBS and I've found Clint Bolton pretty good when he's been on too. Basheer can be OK but often seems to be caught off in his own world when stuff actually happens quickly, like the penalty against Corey Brown on Friday night or numerous goals in the past, which makes for a strange atmosphere. I also found it uncomfortable when he kept getting Malik and Mabil confused last season... The biggest problem with SBS isn't the actual call itself though but the wrapping around the game. At half time, Foz would turn most casual observers off with his holier than thou attitude and Lucy Zelic drives me made with her ridiculous interview questions that she asks then answers in one breath, leaving the player with nothing to say other than 'ahh yeah.' It also just lacks a bit of that pizazz that Fox Sports do so well. Overall SBS works fine for me but I can see that it isn't really doing a good job of engaging new potential fans. I'd be keen on some kind of paid live streaming option (preferably of the Fox coverage) but again that is unlikely to attract new fans.

The next FFA Broadcast deal will be fascinating - particularly seeing the balance struck between money and visibility. I'm guessing that a major priority for the FFA is Friday and Saturday night games live on commercial FTA. That would mean Ch.7 or Ch.10, but both have programming issues. - Ch.7 have the Aust Open - it runs all day/night for 2 weeks on both 7 & 7TWO but other programming can be nogotiated around this premium event. But the real game for Ch.7 is Socceroos/Matildas content. - Ch.10 have the BBL - it runs 7 nights a week for 5 weeks with colossal ratings. There's some potential synergy with Foxtel/Ch.10 and a secondary FTA channel could be engaged. Ch.10 would dearly love some premium international sport content which the Socceroos provide. Otherwise, I think Foxtel will maintain its status quo as broadcasting every game live...though for a reduced price due to the loss of exclusivity, which is the kicker. And obviously the digital rights which is wide open. Gallop's legacy awaits.

My wishes for the new TV deal - Fox Sports gets every match live, more money than before, and the rest I don't care about. FTA will probably do a rubbish job anyway and I don't need their approval to give the sport legitimacy.

I think we'll see a similar deal to the afl, fta network gets a couple games, fox shows everything. Fox own 15% of channel 10, so most likely they'll get the rights. Socceroos rights get included aswell, it needs to be live though. If FFA sell out to fox they'll end up like Union people only watch the odd bledisloe cup match and the world cup

Why would people who have no interest in football tune in to the A-League on FTA in the first place and then suddenly become converts?

Does anyone know the actual likely value of the next deal and how it is worked out? From what little research i have been able to do, it seems to me that if the A-League averages100k viewers per match (appears very likely as a minimum on FTA commercial) then the value of the current 10 team comp at present would appear to be about $41.5m per season (135 games) plus around $2m for finals series. This is based on advertisers paying around $7k for a 30 sec ad, with each 90 minute match (plus pre-post and halftime show) having room for about 22 minutes of ads. I reckon the key is to get on Commercial FTA. A good sales person could easily sell the continued growth and the advertising rates per 30 sec I've used is based on 2-3 yr old numbers so now it may cost more like $10k for a 30 sec spot watched by 100k), So i reckon the deal could be struck for the first year for for about $60m p.a, with a contract that provides for either 2-3 year follow on at the same price if ratings don't hit a certain mark (say ave 120k per game), or a percentage increase if they go above those averages (which will lead to advertisers paying more for spots). The other key is content, with a $60m deal, FFA could set up 2 more teams (for sale) and distribute $4m to each of the 12 clubs in the comp, with a sal cap of $2.8m. That would give each club the chance to make some profit, or spend and go for the title, and still leave FFA with $12m from TV to keep themselves.