How the FFA can make money by streaming A-League matches for free

The latest on the FFA TV negotiations: http://www.sportingnews.com/au/football/list/the-secret-agent-ffa-reject-fox-sports-tv-rights-offer-aleague/1vbb67xpwf2zt1vgwdi8y06670/slide/2 The FFA has knocked back an estimated $55 million per season offer from Fox Sports for the A-League TV rights. The offer, that was presented approximately three weeks ago, was an extra $15 million per season than the current $40 million package currently in place. The FFA claim the offer is not high enough but Fox Sports believe it's very generous considering the proposed $55 million offer is solely for A-League rights, while the previous $40 million per season deal also included the Socceroos' international matches. It looks like Optus can get the complete rights to the A-League for a mere $56 million per annum. Those who were wanting Optus to be the exclusive provider for soccer are about to have their wishes met. It could be a red letter day for the FFA.

Online streaming on a mobile, sure that is not a substitute for PayTv of FTA. Online streaming on a laptop or big screen is a substitution though, and would 100% unequivocally impact rights deals.

Unless you're suggestion is to limit the screen sizes ala the Telstra deals, then yes it would contravene existing (and likely new) deals.

Not sure why I bother, but Telstra's AFL/NRL deals are limited to small screens, i.e not TVs or even laptops. You cannot watch a live game through Telstra of either on a big screen, which is what you are suggesting. If you could that would cannibalise other platforms and significantly depreciate value. The only one who is pretending to know what they are talking about is you.

I return a day later to your *own* article with no response to my simple question. That's a real shame Fuss. You know, your expertise in this area is about as sound as your knowledge in law. Perhaps another name change? BTW — if you do change your name again, try to style your writing slightly different. Writing in the same condescending manner (just with less paragraphs) really doesn't work for you.

"Your posts are just rambling nonsense" I tend to find people on this site default to this response when they aren't capable of justifying their own comments or are caught out in a contradiction. Let's keep it simple, before finalising this discussion. "If that shop were interested in making the deal they’ll send out a deal to that person." Why would the shop not be interested in making a deal? Answer just this one question for me please. It's actually quite important, because the way you answer significantly alters your marketing model — which I'm not entirely convinced you are sure of.

"Introducing “what interface will you use” is just ridiculous micromanagement and completely irrelevant at this stage of the discussion." You want to know why Apple is the most valuable company in the world? Because they got the interface right more often than not on most of their products — Steve Jobs would fire any employee at Apple with a comment like that should he still be alive. You want to come up with an idea like this then you better get the interface right — even at this stage. The very fact you treat that comment with contempt should concern you (if indeed this is your area of expertise). My original points were two fold: 1. Live steaming limitations - which you have been wise to avoid further discussing. I can tell you are limited when it comes to IT expertise. 2. Interface The latter is precisely what we are discussing and I've finally got an answer from you. The interface is vitally important because if the product is unusable due to a sloppy annoying interface, it can do more harm than good. Facebook for years struggled to maximise its revenue, but avoided the temptation of spam advertising so it didn't disrupt its core idea. Despite it being free, they decided to not mess with the interface and provide spam advertising or choice marketing. I'm merely suggesting your idea might not be the wisest, especially if you overcomplicate things at the user interface by forcing consumers to input 5 pieces of data EVERY time they want to watch a game of football. As far as coupons go, I think my original points stand as to their value to consumers in the 21st century — but hey, you sound like you might be a bit older than the average so it might work for the older generation. Not sure this is the target market for the A-league though. Please don't confuse that for me not agreeing with target specify advertising, because I do. I just question whether having customers input 5 pieces of data for this process to arise would have any negative effects. I also question whether people would be enticed by coupons after filling out what is essentially an online shopping surgery before a football match. This idea is more like joining a club, where you pay a monthly subscription to qualify for discounts on certain products. Not entirely sure this is sound, because that's a bit like saying FFA will subsidise all the shops discounting their products being advertised in order to generate extra Tv viewers. Of course if all the advertisers are genuinely providing a discount via these digital vouchers, FFA is cutting off a large percentage of the market who just want to do target specific advertising without discounting their product. We could take it a step further too and suggest that FFA doesn't really care if the vendor provides a discount and just makes it up, but this would undermine the whole point of a voucher system, ultimately tarnishing the very product it's link to, the A-League. Did you ever think of that and the damage such an idea could do? FFA would need to weigh all these variables up and you are making the fatal mistake of thinking if something is free, it doesn't matter if its potentially bad. A sloppy interface, combined with potentially unethical discounting practices, acting as a gateway to watching A-League via a steaming service with Australia's infrastructure, probably has a view checks-and-balances to pass before this idea ever comes to fruition Nemesis. "why do you persist in trying to pretend you know what you’re talking about?" Keep to the discussion please.

No I get it Nemesis. What I don't get is this statement from you: "People could post the name of the shop they wish to buy from. If that shop were interested in making the deal they’ll send out a deal to that person" So people aren't now choosing the shop they want to deal with, nor an item like originally suggested. What we now have is a collection of services/items on offer, providing the customer inputs their top 5 wish list categories. We don't have an interface with any options to choose from, and if we do, you haven't specified how many categories there are, who chooses these categories and how time-consuming it would be *each* and *every* time they login. I'm also not sure why the shops wouldn't be interested...unless of course they are allowed to show prejudice based on any personal or metadata collected. Highly illegal of course. More likely what has happened is you confused the two issues of business marketing and consumer interaction when you decided to change your business model mid-discussion — it's easy to do. What's clear though is despite your continuing appraisal of this being simple, it's not. I've highlighted just how difficult these types of business strategies can be and your disjointed and confused argument reinforces this notion.

"This is something I’m already involved with this type of marketing transaction, so I know exactly how it could work for the FFA." I consider myself a pretty intelligent person, so don't hold back if you need to explain your model in a more complex manner. Please explain how you have mixed business marketing strategies with the customer. It doesn't make any sense to me and I'd really appreciate you explaining it further.

"Don’t over complicate it" I'm trying to simplify it for you. "This is just basic business advertising." Again, you are confusing two important issues here. We are talking about the front-end experience here, not the back-end business side of things. You have now changed your business model to something completely different to your original article after I have challenged some of your ideas. For example you initially proposed this: "When the viewer logs in to watch a match they would be asked to choose any five items they would like to buy within the next seven days. Once the viewer watches at least 20 minutes of that A-League match online, they would receive five coupons (via email, SMS, what have you) that offer a special deal on the five items they are keen to buy." You have now changed it to this: "Maybe I’m not explaining the system well enough. People could post the name of the shop they wish to buy from. If that shop were interested in making the deal they’ll send out a deal to that person." As you said, this is now like a brokerage service - not coupons being given to people watching the A-League after making an arbitrary selection on items they may or may not want. "This is just basic business advertising. IN the past if you had a small business you’d get dozens of intermediaries who want to sell you advertising space in local newspapers, magazines, calendars, yellow pages, etc." I totally agree, but you have somehow mixed the consumer with business advertising. See the weird link you have managed? What you are basically now saying to the customer (not business) is: If you watch the A-League you will be given a discount on brokering services. Why would a consumer want to nominate a product, that in all likely-hood will take days (especially on weekends) to find out if they are eligible for a discount ? What would lead them to make this nomination to begin and why on Earth would they want to do this before sitting down to watch a football match? Why not just phone the vendor themselves and cut the middle-person out? This is what you're saying with this model. You've somehow mixed business marketing strategies with the customer.

My response didn't incorporate your last paragraph that was added later. Now we're talking about something completely different. "People could post the name of the shop they wish to buy from. If that shop were interested in making the deal they’ll send out a deal to that person." Okay, so who decides if this shop is to be an affiliate of the A-League? Google? What is the cost involved with this middle person who decides this? Secondly, companies like Google and Apple take extraordinary cuts on their service such as i-tunes and Android apps etc. Musicians for years have complained about the margins Apple make on every song sold, so I'm not entirely convinced I'm going to be getting a good deal through a coupon if Apple is acting on my behalf for example. I'm not saying this is a bad idea either, but this is more a business model from Google's end, not the A-League - well not to begin with anyway.