Like many Australian soccer fans, I was extremely disappointed to learn of SBS’s decision to on-sell the broadcast rights for a majority of matches at the upcoming World Cup to Pay TV.
As a diehard football supporter, I was absolutely shocked to learn than more than half of the matches in the 2018 tournament will not be screened on commercial TV, and still more shocked to learn that the SBS voluntarily traded away these rights for a relatively small number of English Premier League matches.
While all matches involving Australia will be shown, Australians will only be able to view on free-to-air TV 25 of the 64 matches played. To me, this is a profound tragedy for Australian sport.
The World Cup is the biggest sporting tournament in the world – more widely watched even than the Olympics. Football is the biggest sport in Australia by number of participants, and the World Cup, particularly since 2006, has attracted an enormous following, originally from Australia’s migrant and multicultural community, and increasingly from an even larger section of the community.
Not only is the quality of competition on display at the World Cup of the highest class, the power of the World Cup to conjure emotions of pride and jubilation, and unite the world, at least for ninety minutes, is unsurpassed by any other sporting event.
While we can but make predictions as to which nation may lift the trophy on 15 July, we know for sure that, regrettably, far fewer Australians will be able to experience most of the World Cup than they did in 2014. This is just plain wrong.
Aaron Mooy (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
It scarcely needs mentioning that not everybody can afford Pay TV – in fact a majority of households do not subscribe to it. This means that a majority of Australians will not have access to a majority of matches being played at the World Cup. Not since the 1970s have fewer World Cup matches been broadcast live into Australian homes.
Consider how far the broadcast of sport has come since that time, and how far Australian soccer has progressed. Yet thanks to the SBS, the 2018 World Cup will have the same coverage as the World Cup did in the 1970s.
Older soccer fans will recall that the SBS first brought the World Cup to Australian screens in the 1980s and since then has won numerous awards for its coverage.
That the SBS believes that it is now more important to show Stoke City vs Burnley or West Bromwich Albion vs Wolverhampton than Argentina vs Croatia or Serbia vs Switzerland is absolutely staggering.
The SBS has always prided itself in bringing the ‘world game’ to Australian television, rather than presenting the sort of Anglo-centric coverage that might be expected of other networks.
The late Les Murray said in his autobiography By the Balls that prior to the SBS’s inception, most Australians would have believed that “Bryan Robson and Terry Butcher were the best players in the world.”
They had not seen or ever heard names like Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Platini or Maradona.
He also noted that people “remember telecasts of mega events like World Cups and major matches involving the Socceroos as being the key vehicles by which SBS put football into the Australian sporting psyche.”
It seems incredible that SBS management in 2018 no longer has much interest in the world game beyond English shores. To equate a Premier League game every week to more than half of the World Cup is laughable, and regardless of the money involved, the ‘quid pro quo’ in this deal is woeful not merely from an SBS point of view, but also from the point of view of the Australian soccer community.
Manchester United’s Paul Pogba and Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante in the English Premier League (AP Photo/ Rui Vieira)
The World Cup is on the government’s anti-siphoning list for good reason. Such a prestigious event should be available to all Australians, regardless of how much money they earn.
Parliament brought in anti-siphoning laws to make this possible, however the SBS has, cynically in my view, exploited a loophole, thus making a mockery of the protections put in place to stop World Cup rights from being siphoned away from the TV screens of ordinary Australians.
To quote Les Murray one final time, when “people in the street thought football, they thought SBS; and when they thought World Cup, they thought SBS as its natural home.” The SBS has forgotten the reason it broadcasts soccer in the first place – to bring the world game to Australian viewers.
Whereas children who grew up watching the World Cup on SBS saw far more of it than their parents’ generation, unfortunately the opposite will be true for those who are tuning in for the first time in 2018.
This decision is an own goal on which the SBS will have much time to reflect. I hope the SBS takes this opportunity to remember the words of Les Murray. Australian soccer fans deserve nothing less.
Michael Mac
Guest
Disgraceful move by the SBS.
mattq
Guest
agree SBS sold its soul. Having said that, happy to steer clear of the SBS team for the month, without Les it's complete amateur hour, Lucy and co. I'll sign up for Optus thanks. Hoping screen share with appleTV works fine.
Rolly
Guest
They SBS need to stop claiming they are the home of football it's simply not true anymore not even close .sbs is the home of cycling nowadays .i will not pay for pay tv to watch football never have never will. .I will go to my local club and watch it free
Geoff Dustby
Guest
thanks johnno for that mess of an argument. they sell soccer games for more popular soccer games yet you blame pliticians with egg ball bias? mabye they have more cycling becaise its cheaper (i still dont hink they show more cycling) and many others have paid money for football. why dont you save $1 a day and watch football on fox - theres about 8 channels of it?
Geoff Dustby
Guest
nice, self interested whinge. its not a couple of epl games, its a smart commercial decision.
Geoff Dustby
Guest
face it, you are in the minority and its up to SBS to get as many viewers as possible . but great work calling others narrow minded and prejuduced and self interested because they like watching something different to you must be great living on that high horse
Geoff Dustby
Guest
thats because others have bought the rights. not their fault. but you love to complain
Jonno
Guest
Then sbs should ñot call itself the home of football becuase it certainlÿ is not .they have sold out the game .sbs has become the poor mans ABC.catering for an audience it does not have and never will have as the poor ratings show .its lost its way football is only a minor sport on sbs now ,more air time is spent on cycling than soccer .the biggest sporting event in the World should b available every game to all on FTA TV .why it is not on the anti syphoning list is but for stupid fools in govt who all they see is an egg shaped ball as the only relevant sport in this country ..SBS use to be the home of football one thing is for sure when Ray Warren and les Murray where at the helm football on SbS was mandatory viewing and heaps of football would air every night the network provided excellent coverage of the national competition and the national team coverage now with Foz and the other atrocious font face of the game on SBS the standards have dropped dramatically now offering less and less football ignoring the A league and very poor biased commentating by less than professional commentators who treat their viewers as idiots with their condescending banter .
Rollly
Guest
sBS abandoned football many years ago .its no longer about the game it's about money making .their commitment to soccer is and has been questionable .they don't show the. A league when they should have bid for the FTA tV rights then on selling the World Cup rights is unforgivable for a couple of EPL games pàthetic deal and then Foz showing his favouritism for one of the bid teams for the A lleague expansion is unprofessional as a commentator on tV he should be neutral in these matters I have signed up to Optus for World Cup coverage just so I don't have to listen or watch the SBS coverage .
MQ
Guest
so it's the cost of three coffees! well, that's it, I'm out!
chris
Guest
LH is this a tongue in cheek comment?
chris
Guest
Peeko it was Les Murray who said that
chris
Guest
Exactly right. SBS over the years has been slowly "anglosised" and where you were once able to watch 10-15 hours of football a week, you're lucky to get 3 hours now. The people running SBS now think that the FA Cup is the biggest prize in football.
LuckyEddie
Guest
And Geoff you work for let me guess ummmm SBS. These rights were public assets flogged off for a couple of EPL games. I mean surely they could have at least got a few dollars. As for SBS and their love of football, that has been changing for years and really after this WC that will be it from SBS. In fact with people able to access TV from where ever they come from SBS needs to be shut down.
AGO74
Guest
Oh maybe it is $15 and not $12 - apologies. Anyway my point still remains.
Lionheart
Guest
Great decision by SBS, especially given the time zone differences with Russia - most of the WC games are on in the wee wee hours - and the EPL game they've chosen is the early match on Saturdays meaning most of their EPL games are on at a reasonable viewing hour in Australia.
Lionheart
Guest
am I being ripped off, Optus are charging me $15pm?
Nigel
Guest
Yeh nah
JC
Guest
Narrow minded, shortsighted, prejudiced and self interested comments from the self righteous epl fan base. The article is well balanced and sensible. Really once every 4 years we cant get to watch all the world cup games because someone at SBS believes thT some b grade games from the epl are more 'relevant' to the Australian soccer public, not just the epl followers. Its not even about the money its about making good well balanced decisions. I'd say the silent soccer following majority of people in Australia would consider this a step backwards. I wonder if the great Les Murray was still with us, whether this ridiculous decision would have been made, i very much doubt it.
Mark
Guest
People can buy a BeIN Sports subscription for the small sacrifice of a smashed avo breakfast per month, then they can watch the actual best club competitions in the world.