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The A-League have just announced a new, exciting and slightly expensive television rights deal for the future, ensuring that Australia’s top flight of football remains on the box for the near future.
The deal, worth $346 million over six years, will run through until 2023 and see Fox Sports retain all the broadcasting rights for each and every game of the A-League, W-League, FFA Cup and Australian internationals.
It’s not all bad for those who choose not to pay the monthly subscription to the Foxtel empire, with the announcement of a free-to-air game set to be on Saturday nights to be negotiated and concluded in 2017.
With millions and millions… and millions being thrown around for the new rights, there’s plenty of number crunching and calculating to be done just to see how much and how little is being used in certain areas.
So let’s have a look at some of the numbers coming out of the new deal.
That’s how much the new deal is worth for the A-League, a new high for Australia’s football league.
This is coming off the back of the previous $140 million, four-year set up that is still running from the 2013/14 season to the end of the current 2016/17 campaign.
While still well short of some hefty numbers produced by other leagues in the country, this is a record step by the FFA in building the A-League and continuing to bring it into lounge rooms across the nation.
The new deal is worth $57.6 million a year across six seasons.
Again, this is a new high and unprecedented territory for the A-League but comparisons still say a lot about the positioning of football in the Australian sporting landscape.
Fox Sports currently hang on to the rugby TV rights as well and they’re eerily similar coming in at $57 million a year.
The AFL cut a huge deal at the back end of 2015, settling for a record $2.5 billion over six years. They’re pulling a slightly ridiculous $418 million per year, making the A-League look a little less exciting.
The NRL similarly are a long way ahead of the FFA, picking up $360 million a year on their current TV rights deal.
The NRL and AFL are both earning more money per year than the A-League’s entire six-year deal.
Fox Sports is paying $22.6 million more per season than the last deal.
Despite the difference to some of the bigger codes, the A-League is still only very young and can take a lot of confidence out of the length and speeds at which they continue to expand and grow.
The new rights will be bringing in a touch over $20 million dollars, a sign of the growth and more importantly, the demand for A-league and football in Australia being on the rise.
Thanks in large part to Fox Sports recent loss the rights to the EPL, leaving football hungry fans with the A-League to quench their thirst.
The deal will take Fox Sports through to 19 years with the A-league.
The deal is set to run out at the end of the 2022/23 season, making it the 19th that Fox Sports has covered. Every year since the introduction of the competition.
Their coverage had humble beginnings all the way back in 2005, but as the game continues to grow, so has the depth of the coverage.
Audiences have grown rapidly in the past few years and continue to do so, and it showed in the eagerness from Foxtel to retain the rights.
It gets big views and it’s a real moneymaker for them so it’s hard to see them not extending beyond that 19-year mark when the time comes.
The six-year deal is the longest TV rights deal made in the competitions short but eventful history, surpassing the four-year deal Fox Sports previously had leading into today’s announcement.
It’s also the equal longest TV rights deal in Australia at the moment across the major codes, drawing equal with the AFL and their current six-year deal.
For the first time in the competition’s history, there will be a live game on free-to-air television on a Saturday.
There have been games on free TV before, through SBS on the last rights deal, but they were on a one hour delay.
Although a final agreement or even channel has been set, there will be one live game broadcast on free-to-air television from 2017 onwards every Saturday night in prime time.
It’s a massive step for those who follow the A-League but don’t have pay TV. It brings the game to a whole new audience and continues the increase in exposure.
What will this mean for the A-League’s slated expansion?
With the conversion about expansion forever heating up and two sides expected to join the competition for the 2017/18 season, the extension of extra games could open the door for alterations to the TV rights deal and the possible inclusion of a second free TV game.
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