[AFL] 2012-2016

• reference:
• date: Thursday, April 28th
• “Demetriou announces record deal”
• Author: Andrew Demetriou

Details –

• Channel Seven will broadcast a minimum of four games per weekend in a standard round.
• In NSW, the ACT and Queensland, there will be four games of live football on free-to-air every week. In these markets, all four games will be broadcast on Seven Mate, creating a free to air AFL destination supported by strong cross promotion support on the Seven primary channel.
• In Victoria, Friday night football will now be live, with a reduced delay to be near live at 30 minutes in South Australia and a reduced delay in WA for Friday night games.
• In Victoria, Saturday night football and Sunday afternoon football will be live on free to air, with only the Saturday afternoon game on delay. In SA and WA, the majority of Saturday night and Sunday games will be live.
• This represents an outstanding result for our fans across the country, with more live football on free to air television than ever before.
• All finals will be broadcast live on free to air television, in all parts of Australia.

As part of the free-to-air arrangements with Channel Seven:

• Supporters in South Australia are guaranteed of being able to see the Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide on free to air television for all their clubs’ matches,
• West Australian fans will see West Coast and Fremantle for all matches,
• Queensland fans will see the Brisbane Lions and Gold Coast Suns for all matches and,
• New South Wales, our newest team, the GWS Giants and the Sydney Swans will be seen for all matches in that state.

Under this agreement:

• Fox Sports, through Foxtel and Austar, will deliver every game of every round during the Toyota AFL premiership season, live in every state.
• Every game, every week.
• Under the current agreement, Fox Sports currently deliver four live games in full. This rises to nine games.
• In September, every final, with the exception of the Grand Final, will also be live in every state.
• In Western Australia, NSW, Queensland and South Australia, where there had previously been issues with blackspots for some games that weren’t shown, these have now been solved, so that every game is seen in every state, with Foxtel using multiple channels where games overlap. I thank Foxtel for this great step forward for our supporters
• Additionally, this will be supported by all nine games live on IPTV through Foxtel IQ and the Telstra T-Box.

The total broadcast outcome is $1.253 billion over five years, with a cash contribution over five years of $1.118 billion, and a total contra contribution of $135m. The total cash contribution compares with $749m in the last period for all rights, a significant increase.
That is a great outcome for the football industry that has contributed to the success of our competition.

• Further reference:
• Date: April 29th 2011
• “AFL broadcast deal kicks a goal for modern media”
• Author: Jam,es Chessell

The first point is that Seven’s cash contribution of $425 million is actually $40m less than it paid in the previous 2007-11 deal. This is understandable because Seven has worse rights this time around because Foxtel can steal more viewers by showing every game (except the grand final) live.

This means the $369m cash uplift comes from Foxtel and Telstra, which get along much better talking about football than the potential merger with Austar.

The pay-TV group needs more customers in Adelaide and Perth, where its market penetration lags Sydney and Melbourne, and it clearly believes that offering live AFL is the way to do it. It is a sensible strategy but Foxtel has paid up for the rights ($315m for the previous deal compared with $534.5m in cash for 2012-16) and will probably increase its cost base by at least 2 per cent.

• Source: http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2011/11/19/afl-announce-radio-rights-deal/
• Date: 19th November 2011