The head of Fox Australia has welcomed CBS’s takeover of Channel 10. Peter Tonagh said that CBS were in for the long haul and would bring plenty of free-to-air TV knowledge with vast experience from the US market.
The Financial Review estimated the value of CBS to be $28 billion, claiming their support takes Channel 10 from the financial basket case of networks to arguably the strongest.
The head of CBS said among other things they planned to make themselves a presence in the Australian sports market. That’s welcome news in many ways as we now have Sevem, Nine and Ten as well as Fox, who I assume, along with the telcos like Optus, will be bidding for Australian sport.
Poor FFA. If only the takeover had been nine months ago.
But what luck it is for Cricket Australia. Just when things were looking down, here comes a new (or improved) player with deep pockets wanting to establish a presence and possibly bid for cricket rights.
From what I have read, CBS will be interested in both the NRL and AFL competitions, but they are tied up for another five and six years.
CBS also has an array of US sports it can show with American football, basketball, golf and more, although they may be affected by existing broadcast deals in Australia.
So where does this leave football? What opportunity does it offer the sport? Is more revenue possible? What needs to be done?
All interesting questions. What is known is football will have a match on Saturday night on One, plus Socceroo matches.
The interesting part to speculate on is whether CBS would be willing to pay reasonable dollars for extra games. The A-League’s expansion to 12 teams could happen in the 2018/19 season.
However, I recall a gut reaction by Gallop to a question from a Goal.com reporter (for those that don’t know, Goal.com is one of the world’s biggest football article sites].
The reporter asked after 12 how soon will you go to 14 teams? Gallop replied we will probably go to 16 teams, thus 30 rounds over a home-and-away season. With 14 teams, 26 rounds is too short and 39 to long.
(AFP PHOTO / Peter PARKS)
There is a lot of logic in the reply Gallop made so for the sake of it I am going to assume the jump after 12 is to 16 teams.
Of the various bids submitted to FFA on expansion, finding six teams is feasible, especially if you include the bids of former NSL clubs. Three former NSL bids stand out in Brisbane Strikers with their plans for Ballymore Stadium, South Melbourne with an established stadium, and Adelaide City, who can share Hindmarsh Stadium with Adelaide United.
Additionally, the Southern Expansion bid has offered to build a $300 million stadium.
The question then is how much would three extra games be worth? How can they to sell it CBS? Can we select six teams today given all the drama about future systems?
CBS is a cashed up network looking for Australian sporting content. With the NRL and AFL already tied up for some years, this presents FFA with a once in a generation chance to develop a substantial and well-paid media relationship. We need to be nimble enough to grow six teams quickly and put aside many differences to make it happen.
The Network Ten deal is only for two years, so why not in three seasons have a 16-team competition with up to four games shown on Ten via the new CBS ownership?
If we as a sport could pull this off, it could underwrite other football developments which today lack meaningful funding to progress to higher levels.
Nemesis
Guest
"there’s a great deal of water to pass here" Indeed there is. Looks like the fear of football is causing people to pass water regularly & soil their trousers Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon lose court bid to stop sale of Network Ten to CBS Full story: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/18/lachlan-murdoch-and-bruce-gordon-lose-court-bid-to-stop-sale-of-network-ten-to-cbs?CMP=soc_568
Midfielder
Guest
Nem Only change I would make is your 250K... I would drop to 220K ... other than that I feel the same.
Nemesis
Guest
Middy, we should know by Christmas whether Saturday Night ALeague is hitting the mark, or a total flop, on FTA TV. My 'back of envelope' benchmarks are: 1) Ave ratings: < 250k: Failure 250-300: Pass 300-350: Good 350+: Excellent 2) Top 20 show on FTA TV every Saturday from October to May If we can hit these marks, CBS will definitely continue with ALeague &, depending on the match & timeslot, would take an extra broadcast in an expanded competition. But, first let's see if, & how many of, the football community tunes in.
Midfielder
Guest
Nem I agree with you, but you miss my point. I argued that FFA could mount a case to CBS to run a 16 team competition. Much of the debate or sorry some of the debate centred could CBS sell it and would advertises pay for it. This is a million dollar research project and seems very well done, and high quality.... it says that TV is still the best bang for your buck.... This research would make selling ads just that little bit easier...
Nemesis
Guest
Great to have some data, Middy. No doubt, TV still captures the most viewers. But, if I am Director of Marketing and I have a choice of spending my marketing dollars on: a) 10,000 people whom I know fall within my brand/product demographic; or b) scatter gun advertising to 200,000 people where I don't know anything about the people watching my ad, other than age & gender. I'll be going for targeted ads. Obviously, there's a tipping point. If the "world at large ads" still capture more people than the targeted ads, the scatter gun ads might be better.
Midfielder
Guest
Waz, Nem, Lionheart This is a must read article if you are looking at funding in the near future. Its broadcast by media week and is research carried out by Ebiquity. It shows and the chart in the article is interesting .... but it shows by a clear margin TV is still the most effective and best value for dollar in advertising .... I would not have throught this... I post it here because it directly effects CBS and 10. enjoy..... love your feedback on what you think as well..... as I said check out the chart in the article ... http://www.mediaweek.com.au/ebiquity-thinktv-payback-2017/
Midfielder
Guest
agree
Rolly
Guest
All this talk of expansion and why is the Wollongong wolves bid always ignored ,it's just so frustrating all the focus is in more capital city teams building new stadiums and the rest . The wolves have a purpose built stadium in WIN stadium they have the juniors the backing and a women's football team in the stingrays every thing is in place yet always ignored . The south coast is one of the biggest football nurseries in the country the Wollongong wolves won two NSL titles they have local backing .,yet the talk of a third Sydney team based in Sutherland shire keeps going on .expansion has to include teams from regional cities too like Wollongong still include another Brisbane team ,the A league is too capital city centric .the Socceroos greatest moments where when the NSL was around b cause it included more teams and more teams from regional centre .sydney fc can't even fill its stadium yet the talk of a third Sydney team still persists .
Lionheart
Guest
Waz - thanks. Midfielder - I'm with you here. Qualify for the WC and some positive news for the A League could well be the bump we need.
Midfielder
Guest
LH Often forgotten when social media looks at what various managements do in Australian Football .... this is arguably the thread comment you made when you said. """Football has an enormous challenge in Aust, let alone in QLD. The competition is tough and well established. We need extremely proactive management that takes us forward in the community"""" Many especially new to Football can't grasp how far we have come especially in the media.... the assumption of what can be achieved and paid for on Football's income belongs often in la la land. As I keep posting we are so so so so so close close to a major bump its not funny. Steven Lowy is an issue, as is FFA or who ever is in charge getting control of the conversation and setting the agenda and talking points.... November could be a big month, make the WC and have a new system in place to run Football...
Midfielder
Guest
Thanks thats interesting.
Midfielder
Guest
Nem Thats hard to argue with the live streaming .... You are aware of the thread I posted on for weeks highlighting the NPL matches. Some games had over 50K facebook views... OK a facebook view could be for a second only but our NPL and state Feds have been establishing many systems and contacts and expertise in these areas as well as conditioning Football fans about streaming.
William
Guest
Actually @Midfielder PP is right, last year there was an option for Ten to broadcast 11 Saturday twilight matches, FOX wanted to get some BBL in exchange for Ten getting the AFL. Ten wanted $7m for it where as FOX wanted $11m from Ten.
Waz
Guest
That is a great post. This time last year Cobb had just left, 12 months later all we've got is "normal" which is good but ain't going to make the club. Comments like that, if acted upon, will though. Have you seen Eric Bauthéac by the way. Tommys replacement.
Lionheart
Guest
oh Waz, please stop this rapid fire defence of all things Roar. It's ok to criticize your club, indeed it is a sign of a strong club that can listen and accept criticism. As to a criticism of Roar management, which is a very broad group not just the MD, I don't have any specific issues, which is itself the issue. Roar is cruising and has done little outside what's expected or directed. The academy's great, but not a Roar initiative although great implementation. We have led the HAL with junior development, well done. We are establishing formal links among the football community. All, good, and I compliment Roar management and club staff for all the excellent work they do. What lovely and helpful staff we do have. But we have not created a presence in Brisbane. We are barely noticed, even in season. We lack corporate support and media coverage. Football has an enormous challenge in Aust, let alone in QLD. The competition is tough and well established. We need extremely proactive management that takes us forward in the community and causes us to be noticed and liked. I'm not seeing that at Roar.
Nemesis
Guest
PS. Just saw your profile. Now your pessimism makes even more sense. Football illiterates talking football... why do they bother?
Nemesis
Guest
@Jack Russell No problem. Your opinion is as worthless, or valuable, as mine. People outside the A League community have been pessimistic for the past 12yrs & I have scant interest in outsiders' opinions on our future. As i said 5 city ratings below 250k i consider a failure & clear evidence #Aleague is not, and never will be, widel accepted.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
There is zero chance of those numbers. I reckon best case scenario 150k average over the season. But like I said, anything over 100k is a good result.
Nick Symonds
Guest
"Why would CBS telivise the A League with small audiences when they have mega amounts of Baseball ,Basketball and ice hockey from the USA that would easily fill screens with greater audinces and advertising revenue." 1) The NBL has now been relegated to SBS while the A-League has been promoted to Ten/ONE. 2) What kind of Australian would prefer baseball to cricket? Seriously... 3) As for Ice hockey, who cares? We don't have ice! Ya silly galah. Australia, "the sun's anvil".
Midfielder
Guest
PP I think you will find 7 have the rights for FTA coverage.