A lot has been made of the current A-League climate.
The start of 2020 has been bleak for the league, with sponsors pulling out left, right and centre, fans seemingly going into meltdown and pundits trying to calm the masses down.
Hyundai, the A-League’s major partner, is rumoured to be considering their options on whether to keep sponsoring the league in June, while Aldi, Caltex, Westpac, NAB and Bet365 have all left. Football right now seems to be in freefall.
Following the rescheduling of the Sydney derby due to horrible conditions, an article was published about the match being relegated to the ABC’s kids channel, ABC Me, in favour of the Victorian Open, a golf competition with no marquee names involved.
(Albert Perez/Getty Images)
This is what happens when a sports league is left neglected by its governing body. The Sydney derby, once the biggest sporting rivalry in Sydney – and a derby, according to rugby journalist Phil Rothfield, had a better atmosphere than the State Of Origin – is now the subject of ridicule as football is once again not taken seriously by the media.
The decision to relegate the Sydney Derby to ABC Me comes at a time of ratings for the A-League on Fox Sports, with three fixtures not breaking the 20,000 viewer mark. Whose fault is this?
Foxtel must take some blame, but most must go to the pre-James Johnson FFA.
There was no marketing campaign released for this upcoming A-League season until a week before it got underway – and even then it was just one video and accompanying posters for each A-League team. This lack of advertising showed apathy from the FFA, who once again neglected their competition.
On top of that, other than an attempt to lure Zlatan Ibrahimovic Down Under on a six-week deal, there has been no real attempt by the FFA to try and lure a true marquee name to Australia, with Keisuke Honda the closest thing since Alessandro Del Piero left the league.
Moving on to Foxtel, they don’t seem keen on supporting the A-League, with the competition often absent when the broadcaster advertises its in print and online, including Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga instead of the local competition.
This has led to fans asking whether a move to Optus would be better for the league. I think so. Optus already has exclusive rights to the Premier League, Champions League and World Cup, the three tournaments people interested in football want to watch most.
But would a move to Optus be better for the A-League in terms of ratings?
In terms of how the FFA can improve the league and the sport in Australia as a whole, there’s a multitude of options. From scrapping the salary cap to employing a head of communications, from giving each team a level playing field in terms of finances to developing grassroots football and reopening the centre of excellence – all arguably mistakes made during David Gallop’s reign of terror as FFA CEO – could improve football in this country and let the A-League thrive.
However, we as fans may have to accept the fact that things will probably get worse before they get better.
Then we move to the media. They paint the sport in a negative way due to the horrible way football’s governing body has gone about communicating important matters. For example, we’re still none the wiser on why Alen Stajic was fired as Matildas coach. There has to be better communication and more transparency from the FFA on where they want to take the game before the media starts painting the sport in a good image. This negative media coverage hurts the game – the England national team experience the same thing from their press before every major tournament.
Right now football in Australia is digging a deeper hole for itself. There are positives, though – Australia will be at the Olympics for the first time in 12 years, the A-League has become much more competitive this season, with only the odd drubbing here and there, and expansion is finally happening.
Australian football and the A-League won’t collapse; that’s just ridiculous. It is, however, precariously close to descending into chaos.
Blood Dragon
Roar Rookie
EPL, UEFA Champions league, UEFA Europa league, some FA WSL games, some J-League games, UEFA Euro 2020, european friendlies and the Club World Cup in terms on sports content
Post_hoc
Roar Rookie
Axe That's what many people on this tab have been saying for years. Maybe you need to hang around here a bit you will be surprised what you learn.
michael Hynes
Guest
The A-League needs the thoughts and feelings of real fans brought to the surface by foxsports. Fox need to stop pretending like the league isnt struggling to progress anywhere. Fox need to advocate for the league to be improved and grow further. Although fox provide decent exposure of the league, it would definetely help if more games were available to watch on free to air tv. Channel 9 have NRL and Channel 7 have cricket.. the A-league get's one Saturday afternoon game on ABC... The size of statuims and attendance numbers to games also plays a part toward the league looking dead. A lot of work needs to be done
Chopper
Guest
Redondo you are absolutely right. Plus the FFA stuffed it up by not adding two teams and making uneven rounds. The competition should still be played over 3 rounds by 12 teams giving a 33 game season. When you add a second division promotion of two teams per year up to 16 teams allows for a 30 game season home and away. alternate weekends. After you have attain a 16 team league relegation can come into it with a playoff between the bottom two and the top two from the second division with the winner only going through if they meet the A Leagues tough criteria. For those wanting to reduce the games played you are reducing the opportunities for younger players to break through as sometimes their best bet is an injury in the first team which a longer season ensures will happen. Go back to Redondo's comment regularity is habit forming. Habits follow through to regular sales.
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
can only watch so much, but I thought they had a number of EFL matches, maybe I'm wrong, but I guess my point is they are expanding their coverage and their talk show is very broad. To be honest, I rarely watch any game live in the middle of the night, but I do watch Optus replays and mini-matches (which I notice Fox has copied). I only watch BeIn occasionally as I find their coverage a bit irregular.
Blood Dragon
Roar Rookie
the only full league coverage optus has is the EPL, it only has the rights to some J-League and FA WSL Games
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
The clubs are running the show , they want to restructure because they dont own anything except a license. So how does it work they get a new bigger TV deal and now these huge license fees from new clubs and they cant afford to do anything. Well if it comes to a choice between spending a million on a promotion campaign or putting the money into their own pockets they all vote to put money into their pockets. In the meantime they continue to waste vast amounts of money on dodgy overseas coaches and dodgy players. How much are they taking from the pie now we dont know but it must be substantial. They got rid of Lowy and now they should face the consequences. All those who were promised something they can fob off we cant give it to you till the new structure is in.
Nick21
Roar Pro
Yeah which is an unacceptable situation. From my understanding all major sponsors were bought on from Lowys relationships and now that the emperor (or the emperor's family) has been overthrown the sponsors are walking. This must have caught the A-league owners by surprise (it shouldn't have but it did) because they did plan to take over but pushed it back.
Waz
Roar Rookie
If that’s the way Lowy structured the deal then it’s a disgrace. The FFA are in charge and don’t make investments into a league they wont control in 4 years. Equally the club owners wont make investments until they have control. Neither side can do much it seems.
Christopher
Guest
I think cricket was their one last flail at attempting to keep subscribers number more constant over the non AFL/NRL period The last two summers of cricket have been garbage so it will be interesting to see how their strategy goes with India and England touring in the next two years The average $$ amount they make from subscribers has been falling since the intro of Netflix/Stan and then Kayo (people moving from $60-$70 set top box subscriptions to $25) They can either go with the method they currently have (50+ sports) and lose money, rationalise the number of sports, just have AFL/NRL channels or jump out of the market entirely I think they will go for option two and give SR/A League the chop They are locked into cricket for another four years, I doubt they offer another $630 million next time around for those rights
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
Whether it's reality or perception, it does look like no one has their hand on the steering wheel presently. I guess the new CEO needs some time to get on top of his brief.
AxeMaster
Roar Rookie
3.5 years? There might be nothing to take control of by then.
AxeMaster
Roar Rookie
I never knew that Nemesis. So why does the A-League really need Fox Sports then? You wanna find an organisation losing money quicker than the A-League.....that's Poxtel.
Nick21
Roar Pro
Waz - the reason the game isn't transitioning to the new owners is because the A-league owners know sponsors and even Fox will use it as a legal Avenue to walk. We can't afford to wait another 3 years. We need a plan now.
AxeMaster
Roar Rookie
Yes, that's right Allen, the A-League is not going anywhere, so the supporters and TV audience is choosing to go instead.
David V
Guest
EFL is still on BeIn Sports along with La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. BeIn also has some games from South America. In the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, BeIn covers ALL the major European leagues and South American ones as well.
fabokster6643
Roar Rookie
It's a ridiculous situation That the owners are holding back from doing anything because they don't Technically have complete control.surely relationships aren't so fractured that they can't begin to implement Some of The initiatives they promised. It's an intolerable situation when you have absolutely no promotion or pro active statements of support at a time when the league is being gunned down by the rl/afl mafias
fabokster6643
Roar Rookie
This is a real issue but in the mean time both need to step up and actually promote
Kevin
Guest
Sort of my point , If Perth travel to play city on Saturday why not hang around and play victory on Wednesday , we gets some meaningful mid week sport on the box in clear air Interesting that the distance derby was Wellington vs Perth .. do Vladivostok have a rivalry with St Petersburg?
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
Optus is improving all the time, with their football coverage. They now have the J League, plus a number of Women's League UK, the EFL and EPL. Their weekly wrap up show is better than the Fox equivalent, covering the major leagues in Europe plus Japan and the A League. They're shaping up well for the A League, imo.