So many A-League fans view Fox Sports as a charity service that you have to wonder about football’s long-term future on the network.
Let’s get the brickbats out of the way first.
No, I’m not paid by Fox Sports, nor do I receive any discount on my subscription.
Yes, I realise that Foxtel is expensive, and that not everyone can afford it.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about a column I’ve considered writing at the start of every season for years.
Rumours of the A-League’s demise may be greatly exaggerated, but if there’s an inherent danger lurking around the corner, it’s the idea that someone else will pay for everything.
You see it everywhere these days. It’s the result of so many things – including this column – being made available on the internet for free.
This column exists because the advertising on the site helps pay for it, but I hear regularly from readers that if I didn’t write it, someone else would.
And they’d be expected to write it for free, judging by the number of A-League fans who make a point of admitting they never pay for any media they consume.
For a long time that has included fans who scour online forums and use VPN services to access illegal streams of A-League games.
The broadcast vision usually comes directly from Fox Sports itself.
Some of these fans engage in animated discussions about their A-League team of choice, and will often demand bigger signings and a better standard of football.
But they never seem to think where the money might come from to pay for it.
If there’s a flipside to this – and I’ve been in this position myself – it’s that many fans, particularly younger viewers, simply can’t afford a Foxtel subscription.
I can relate to that.
And when I came back to Australia from Japan and moved into a few different places before settling in, I didn’t sign up to Foxtel first thing – although I didn’t really need to, since I worked on the sports desk at the national broadcaster.
Cost, and the fact that younger people traditionally tend to share-house and move around more frequently than cantankerous middle-aged columnists like myself, are two factors working against Foxtel reaching a younger demographic.
And that doesn’t look like changing anytime soon now that Foxtel has just increased the price to new customers of its Foxtel Now streaming service.
They’ve also just paid millions of dollars to acquire cricket broadcasting rights – a sport traditionally watched by older, middle-class Aussie males – and seem determined to position themselves as a premium content provider, rather than a competitor to streaming services like Netflix. Or Optus Sports.
Keisuke Honda is exactly the type of player the A-League needs. (Photo by Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images)
Plenty of A-League fans seem to think Optus is the logical next destination should Fox Sports ever pull the plug.
But the question is whether they would pay tens of millions of dollars per season to produce their own coverage, replete with local commentators and all?
A few A-League fans have been critical of Fox’s coverage of late, suggesting it suffers in comparison to the wall-to-wall coverage of competitions like the NRL.
They also generally fail to note that for the past two years Channel Nine’s former head of rugby league, Steve Crawley, has been calling the shots at Fox Sports.
Some of these are the same fans who get online every day to demand more A-League coverage in metro newspapers, before freely admitting they would never buy one.
So can we really demand better football coverage when so many fans admit they have no intention of paying for it?
I recognise that this is a sensitive topic, and that plenty of A-League fans prefer to watch the game on free-to-air TV or at the stadium instead.
But it’s a discussion the game needs to have.
Either Fox Sports is the A-League’s broadcast partner and we pay for the content, or football needs to start thinking about some alternative revenue streams.
reuster75
Roar Rookie
Be interesting at the end of the season to find out numbers that use the new MyFootball app to watch games, especially as subscription price is reasonable. As you point out the younger audience use their phones/tablets to watch 'content' these days and that's the one group that the FFA often struggle to engage. Maybe for a couple of years the FFA could partner with a FTA broadcaster and help cover some of the production costs to get the exposure the league needs. I believe the fact that the a-league apart from 1 game a week for last few years has been exclusively behind a pay wall has hindered the league's growth as it's only preaching to the converted.
Paul
Guest
So I'll post again. I won't get Foxtel because of Fox's major shareholders who do everything to make themselves more money to the detriment of most of the rest of us.
Baz
Guest
"Yes, I realise that Foxtel is expensive, and that not everyone can afford it. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about a column I’ve considered writing at the start of every season for years." You can't just say that 'i realise foxtel is expensive' and then push it aside, because it's literally the most important thing. Foxtel have themselves to blame because they force you to sign up to multiple packages. I literally could not care any less about cricket, or NRL or V8 supercars or any of the other crap they have. I cared about two things. A-league and English Premier League, so i'm not about to pay a minimum of $60 per month so i can watch a couple of games for 6 months of the year and have it sit there for the other six months or Monday to Thursday 52 weeks a year. Allow me the option to sign up the the sports package and ONLY the sports package at a reasonable fee and i'd be happy to. The thing with Optus taking the EPL was that, this year you can sign up to it for $15 per month without being an optus customer and optus EPL coverage trumps the foxtel coverage of EPL with their 15 min pre and post match analysis. With foxtel, i'm forced to sign up to 40 other channels i'm never going to touch for ridiculous amounts. You can actually sign up to an A-league pass with Telstra for $100/year or even monthly or weekly passes so you don't even need foxtel.
rob charlton
Roar Rookie
What a stupid headline!! Yes I am an A League fan and no, I do not have (and never will have ) Foxtel. I would much prefer to spend my time and money attending Sydney FC's home matches.
MarkfromCroydon
Roar Pro
Thanks Griffo. I'll see if I can use it and work it out!
Waz
Roar Rookie
Here’s last nights viewing: #ALeague Mariners Trial #UsainBolt 35k For comparison: #NFL Giants v Eagles 25k #NBL Illawarra v Melbourne 23k #AFL #FoxFooty Trade Lowdown 18k
Nemesis
Guest
Optus wanted the rights. But, they are adamant they do not want to produce the match video. Optus is a telco that wants to also deliver content. It does not want to be Netflix that produces content. I'd say Telstra is the same. Telstra delivers the footage for various sports, but it does not invest in production. The new deal that has been tabled, will see the match day video production done centrally & on-sold to whomever wants it. Each buyer will provide its own commentary team. Same as EPL. The video production is done centrally. Each country, even each broadcaster in one country will organise its own commentators. The same company that organised the EPL rights put this very deal to the FFA. The FFA Board said they'll stick with FoxSports. Now that FFA Board will be out the door.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Nelson The thing is, when the broadcast deal went out to tender a few years back, Foxtel was the only bidder. Optus had already won the rights for the Premier league, but showed zero interest in the A-League. No FTA bid for the A-League. Foxtel gave TEN the Saturday night game for nothing, and it attracts extremely low ratings. There were a couple of games that got as low as 28k (that's national), that's about as low as you can get on FTA before you drop completely off the radar. But fear not, according to Nemesis, there's someone out there wanting to pay $100 million for a 2nd division.
Griffo
Roar Guru
Mark, there are probably a few ways to see the phone on your computer screen. I use AirServer. Doesn’t cost much and works on both Windows and Mac, for both iOS or Android. For iOS it acts as an Apple TV receiver on the laptop. It works the same way as a chrome cast receiver. It does need Wi-Fi but if you have kids and devices sounds like you might already have it. Quality is half decent (accounting for the 7inch screen size resolution limit) and helps utilise a bigger screen 8-)
Nelson
Roar Rookie
Foxtel is to blame in my view for the lack of A-LEAGUE viewers, their system is outdated and pricing is an absolute rip-off. I will never pay a greedy company that hiked up their prices right after they forced the government to crack down in the average Joe that streams content illegally. If that isn't greedy and if you agree that it was the correct move than I feel for you. Foxtel have all the best shows and some sports but can't structure their streaming system to even work properly. It's unbelievable that they owned Presto their streaming system that had great content but lacked their best series like GOT, TWD why because again they are greedy. How hard is it for them to offer individual game purchases? In this day and age we should be able to purchase to view a WSW vs SFC for $5 and stream that live but that's just Foxtel they refuse to innovate because they want you to pay a fortune. So if you want FoxTel Now Sports you are now forced to pay for the Pop & Lifestyle pack - $25/mth to have the Sport* pack - $29/mth that's $54 a month vs Optus Sports $14.99 and BeinSports $19.99. Some might argue but that's a lot of sports channels offered by Fox and yes that's correct but I don't watch NRL or AFL only Football and F1. Bare in mind if you where to choose their entire pack it would cost you $104 a month. Moving forward the A-LEAGUE would be better off on Optus Sports that has a much better pricing and a system that streams properly and also works in Fetch TV seamlessly, I had no issues during the World Cup. Anyone here that has Optus Sports has to agree their coverage of the EPL and World Cup is absolutely brilliant. A-LEAGUE needs to look into their negotiations and should join the home of Football that is Optus Sports not only would they promote the A-LEAGUE better but their streaming system is modern and their pre game and after game show is brilliant. By joining Optus Sports the A-League will be sitting alongside the most marketed and popular League in the world the Premiere League and if that itself isn't a way to get more people into the A-League then it has no hope at all.
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
The Sunday night 'thought bubble' , as you so delightfully label it Bilbo, is an illustrative point only. It's not a thought bubble, but rather placed there to illustrate that a different approach might be taken to selling A League rights. It could well have been the free game to FTA, the point is with a bit of thought the A League rights could be used to market and build the game. Some games might even not be televised but only streamed. I hope our new Board and A League management take a different approach to what we've seen in the past.
AR
Guest
Last time, “Nemesis” stated the new deal would be: - approx. $100M per year - YouTube, Google and other media giants involved - a commercial FTA bidder. Yep. This time the ace-in-the-hole is the apparent addition of a second division. We’ll see how that goes.
chris
Guest
Cheers Nem
MarkfromCroydon
Roar Pro
YES, YES and YES! I am an A League fan, and I don't have Foxtel. I am guilty as charged. I'm one of those people who watched streams for free sourced off the internet. I'm a technophobe and a luddite, so if I can access streams, there may be many thousands more doing the same thing. I can't get Foxtel. I would get divorced if I did. I would watch football 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and my wife would be watching some total crap on the other t.v and the kids would be left to their own devices (quite literally actually!). No, we couldn't do it. Having said all that, this year, I've finally worked out that for $99 I can watch every A League match on my phone with the my football live app thing, so I've just decided to get that. No need to watch streams now. Now, if I can just work out how to plug my phone into my computer to watch it on a half decent sized screen.
Vince Majestyk
Roar Rookie
Your right. Tv is dead to the next generation. I think this article’s issue is an irrelevance in ten years time.
Vince Majestyk
Roar Rookie
I think those kids are playing FIFA or NBA on their consoles. My son is yet to play these games. But your right. Once he does.... FTA, Foxtel pretty much tv in general or going outside and kicking a ball will seem sad compared to slapping on his VR Goggles and being Pogba.
Nemesis
Guest
Absolutely agree, Middy. Our ratings are poor in absolute terms, but when we compare the investment Foxtel makes in ALeague & the investment it makes in other competitions, they're doing extremely well from ALeague. Plus their production costs are higher in the other sports with more content to produce. Foxtel's ROI for ALeague is likely to be higher than it is for NRL or AFL, even though the dollar figure return is obviously going to be bigger for those other competitions.
Nemesis
Guest
Never said $100M for Div2. Please seek help. You are not ok. Weekends must be even tougher for people like you.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
$100M for a season of Division 2. I wonder how many would truly believe that?
Mister Football
Roar Guru
The $50.5 million per annum the FFA gets in broadcast terms includes both Foxtel and one match per round on FTA, so when you insist it's just about Foxtel, actually, no, it's not just about Foxtel. Anyway, to then turnaround and try and make a case that getting $50.5 million per annum is a whole lot better than getting $418 million per annum requires some warped logic, I think most would agree. Come to think of it, someone once wrote an article making that very case, I kid you not! Now if you are trying to argue that Foxtel is probably paying overs for the soccer, given the recent decline in ratings, there's probably some truth in that, but they have a bit of insurance in being able to withhold $15 mill from the last two years of the deal. Also, the admittance of two additional teams means the deal goes from $50.5 mill per annum (or $5.05M per club) to $56.1M for 12 teams (or $4.675M per club).