Telstra announces five-year live mobile rights deal with FFA, new dedicated football app

Telstra buys content from anywhere. The My Football Live App which will be the home of news, information and video for Australian Football on mobile devices and live streaming of the Hyundai A-League and select Westfield W-League, FFA Cup and National Team games. Telstra will also become the exclusive telecommunications partner of the FFA under the deal, and a Technology Partner of all FFA properties including the Hyundai A-League, Caltex Socceroos and Westfield Matildas. Joe Pollard, Telstra’s Group Executive of Media and Chief Marketing Officer, said Telstra was now providing a year-round live mobile sports offering across premier male and female competitions. The My Football Live App will be included in all Telstra mobile plans, providing another added benefit of being a Telstra mobile customer. “We are the home of live Australian sport on-the-go, and on our brilliant network we are committed to making games available live, fast and data-free to as many Telstra customers as possible,” said Ms Pollard. “We offer live streaming of every game of the AFL, AFLW, NRL and Netball seasons, on the leading mobile network in the country - and football is now joining the family. Adding the My Football Live App gives our customers a summer offering to complement the existing AFL, AFLW, NRL and Netball Live apps that are created by Telstra,” she added. David Gallop, FFA CEO, said more Australians than ever before would now have access to live football. “Our media rights strategy was to deliver content to as many Australians as possible and this new partnership with Telstra delivers on that commitment, helping us offer many more people the chance to watch the Hyundai A-League, Westfield W-League, the FFA Cup and our national teams live,” said Mr Gallop. “As we saw with Riley McGree’s scorpion kick, the Hyundai A-League can produce moments that generate tens of millions of views globally. “And with women’s football the fastest growing part of the game, fans will now have the new option of watching the Westfield Matildas and Westfield W-League on the move through Telstra.

Its part of the existing $346 million dollar media deal with Foxtel - Telstra own 35% of Foxtel., so there's no added cost to Foxtel. However, the FFA gets an additional $30 million a year in sponsorship and free advertising from both Telstra and Foxtel. Telstra will become a major sponsor of the A-League, which is great news and gives the A-League more marketing power and reach. Online streaming figures are more than doubling every year, so this will will boost A-League viewership and makes the A-League as mainstream as Cricket, Netball, AFL and NRL to those that follow sport or check results online in Australia. This is in additional to the existing global online contracts the FFA has with broadcast partners round the world and has lifted the A-League ratings into the tens of millions globally. The A-League Grand Final was seem live in over 100 countries. A great achievement for the growth of Australian Football and the A-League. Now bring on the Wold Cup and the Asian Cup!

Correct. Part of the uncertainty lies with the FFA who left it ambiguous when they announced their broadcast deal as to whether they could still sell the online rights. Similarly, they left it ambiguous as to whether they were seeing any extra money from Fox giving One a game per round - it's now clear that Fox held that right to onsell the game to FTA within the existing deal.

Telstra plan to have it up “in time for the Socceroos’ journey to Russia in June I don't understand that as OPTUS, not Telstra, has the rights to the World Cup.

I think the headline is misleading. FFA sold the rights, including streaming, to Foxtel, who has now on-sold them.

No you can not do that otherwise there would be no need for foxtel

Nick This quote from the 442 article might answer your question about how much the FFA gets from it: "Telstra sub-licensed the digital rights from Foxsports..." IN other words, similar to One getting the FTA rights via Foxsports, I'd say the FFA is not receiving one red cent from it.

Great to know thanks that will come in very handy. Sorry to hear about Newcastle Jets I am a Roar supporter but was rooting for them as I hope most neutrals were.

Oh, for sure. I was using a tablet to stream games through AirPlay onto an apple TV, but dad eventually bought me a FoxtelNow Box (dunno what the name is called) so that works really well straight onto the TV. Airserver sounds very much like a good idea though, I'd never heard of it until your comment.

Shame if you can’t watch via laptop - which I suspect is close enough to competing directly with Foxtel - but no problem via a mobile device and Apple TV/AirPlay etc. One thing worth a look is Airserver - it acts as an AirPlay/chromcast/miracast server for iOS or Android devices on laptops, so you don’t need an Apple TV then, just plug the laptop to the tv. ??

Sorry, someone told me, I can't.

Airplay if you have an AppleTV? But yeah, I'd imagine it would predominately be on devices eg. phones and tablets. Telstra's AFL app does let you log in through the AFL website on a laptop/desktop, but you can't get live games, only replays unfortunately.

Does this mean you can only watch it on your phone? Is there a way of projecting it to a bigger monitor?

Ummmm,,,, Not sure. I used to pay $50 a month for "foxtel play", just for soccer 2016 to 2017. Now, seems, I pay $99.00 only for a year. If I am away, I can watch anywhere. If I am home, I can cast from my mobile to my big tv as I have got a Google Chromecast device already. Is this correct? Very attractive.

Why are you paying $100 per month for FOXTEL if all you want it for is the A-League? Basic and sport is nowhere near that much, more so if you have an online only subscription.

NEWS STORY - "Video consumption now accounts for 38 percent of Telstra's mobile network usage -- up by 40 percent year on year -- and is forecast to rise to 75 percent of its mobile traffic within the next five years. The telco added Foxtel packages to its post-paid mobile plans last year. Australia's third-largest telco, Vodafone, also launched its own smart TV box in March, but said it won't be buying rights to content because it believes in "content democratisation"." https://www.zdnet.com/article/telstra-announces-a-league-broadcast-deal/ Can't find any mention anywhere on how much FFA will get from it.

KJ I think Telstra own around 35% of Fox. Newscorp owns the rest.

Seems an opportunity lost not to be live streaming all w-league games but overall this is a positive development especially for people like me that don't want to pay the huge sums for Foxtel just to get the a-league.

Well I’m a Telstra customer already so that’s Foxtel gone and a $100/month saving (less the cost of Netflix that the rest of the family will no doubt want).

Roar editors how is this moderated?? Does this ultimately effect Foxtel support of the a league,, or are they in partnership with Telstra