Are the APL creating a privatised version of The World Game?

Yesterday’s announcement in The Australian of a $30 million investment by the APL on a bold digital marketing strategy was relatively scant on details as to what this could entail.

Might club owners be filling a gap in the market left by the imminent retirement of SBS’s The World Game?

“…When we ask our fans where do you go to find your football fix, there’s no one single place to find out what is happening if you want to know about Sydney FC, Arsenal (in England) or Barcelona,” said APL chief executive Danny Townsend.

Except doesn’t this place exist already? Or more accurately, didn’t this place exist up until recently?

The recent announcement of the merging of TWG with their broader sport offerings has created an opportunity for the APL to assume a pride of place in the Australia football media market. To take the model laid down by TWG, and ramp up its commercial potential a rung or two.

Of course, TWG has long been a place to go if you need to know about Sydney FC, Arsenal and Barcelona all at once. It covered the full spectrum of football worldwide.

Long-time host of The World Game, Lucy Zelic (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

But does it sell advertising to companies? Does it sell merchandise to fans?

In many ways, what the APL intend to do is just the natural progression of capitalism: taking a previously government-funded product, and then privatising it in order to monetise it.

This commercial-minded approach to a TWG 2.0 hopefully stands to benefit A-League clubs by benefiting their owners, so I am all for it. Let’s give their new digital platform the working title of Total Football Australia for the purposes of this article.

The more the A-League can be presented in close association with other more prestigious leagues in the world, the better.

This is why I am on record as believing that it is only a matter of time before ViacomCBS/Channel Ten/Paramount+ seeks to acquire additional football content on their platforms to compliment the Australian content acquired already.

The Premier League compliments the A-League, with the latter being all the worse off when Foxtel lost the broadcast rights to the former (to Optus Sport) a few years ago.

Consider this in the context of the Total Football Australia platform; a provider could show a highlights clip of a ‘worldy’ goal from the Premier League, and then show a similar such clip from the A-League of comparable quality.

You could do a ‘top five goals of the week’ highlights package (or anything other creative content the imagination conjures).

The intention of this website would function as the media arm for the A-League and W-Leagues, but in reality the overarching purpose of the website, like many that have come before it, would be to generate traffic and views in order to sell advertising.

So, the more leagues and content covered, the more engagement from the various groups operating in Australian football (A-League, NSL/NPL and European fans), and therefore the more enticing to advertisers.

Who could contribute to this platform?

Well, Lucy Zelic, for one, who recently announced she was leaving SBS.

Simon Hill would be a given.

Simon Hill. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images for Sydney FC)

But I think there would be a few Foxtel football personalities in Mark Bosnich, Robbie Slater and Andy Harper who would be of great journalistic value to Total Football Australia.

Sure, many have called for new faces in the Channel Ten/Paramount+ match coverage, and I tend to agree, but it would be an absolute travesty for these truly passionate fans of football to be lost to the game in the transition from Foxtel to Paramount+.

Say what you will, but these guys have been flying football’s flag for a long time and that should be respected. Hell, Andy Harper completed a football-related thesis, so his passion for thoughtful footballing prose should be encouraged.

Total Football Australia would also fill a gap left not just by The World Game, but by many other areas of the mainstream media. We would all have witnessed the gradual silencing of the A-League and W-League on the Fox Sports website, as well as other News Corp-owned outlets.

A dedicated football platform would give a voice back to the A-League that it just flat out hasn’t had for a while now.

Beyond news articles, scoreboards and highlight videos, what else might this platform ideally contain?

Perhaps forums such as this one for fans to talk all things football. Advanced stats and analytics? Perhaps a merchandise section to further monetise the site and by extension the A-League clubs?

This has been a missed opportunity for the A-League for a while now. Produce halfway fashionable and decent quality team merch, and provide an official platform to sell it, and you open up another revenue stream for the league.

A platform such as this could provide another outlet for A-League and W-League content to move out from behind the Paramount+ paywall. Most fans were pleased with the announcement of one Saturday and one Sunday game being shown on Channel Ten’s suite of channels each week, but for some, this was perhaps not enough.

In time, perhaps Total Football Australia should stream a Friday night match for free on their platform (which would also stream concurrently on Paramount+ for existing subscribers).

They could even develop this into a bit of a brand. I can see it now: Friday Night Football streaming live on Total Football Australia and Paramount+! A genuine possibility, being that APL will be producing this content directly from now on.

This match could still stream on Paramount+, just not exclusively. That is, it could mimic the Friday night NRL match that is simulcast on Channel Nine and Foxtel concurrently.

These matches could feature ads similar in presentation to Optus Sport, which would be another commercial opportunity for the APL and Paramount+.

Some additional requested features of Total Football Australia, if I may?

A tipping comp for both the A-League and Premier League, replete with naming rights sponsors (the more leagues, the better, though).

I was involved in a Premier League tipping competition with work colleagues this past season, and you’d be surprised to know how difficult it is to find a decent tipping competition platform for what is near-on the biggest sporting league in the world.

Also, a ladder predictor (with naming rights sponsor) for each competition to allow nerdy fans (like me) to have fun predicting the run to the season climax. Fantasy football, anyone? Perhaps with accompanying naming rights?

The platform presents a tantalising commercial opportunity for the 11 ownership groups in the A-League, an opportunity presented by The World Game’s demise and the newly-found independence from Football Australia.

The opportunities present to savvy businesspeople in operating within the world’s most popular sport (and one currently undervalued in Australia) have surely been clear to club owners for a while now, with this digital platform merely the first of many future opportunities to be explored.

Consider who the APL has recently gone into business with – ViacomCBS, a multinational broadcasting giant that owns a Hollywood production studio and who has taken a minority stake in the APL.

The article in The Australian also mentions a looming $100 million equity injection from a group such as Silver Lake, who include the City Football Group in their investment portfolio.

Marquee player signings, anyone? All of a sudden, businesspeople in the A-League ownership group have started to ‘hunt in a pack’ through independence, and then sought to form business relationships with other organisation in positions of power.

Perhaps it was never about owning the A-League clubs themselves, but instead leveraging them to get a foothold into the football media market in Australia, as well as emerging opportunities beyond this?

Time will tell, of course, but the proposed digital strategy announced yesterday is a massive commercial opportunity for the APL.