Story in Crikey yesterday that Seven is so weak and Nine so resurgent that they foresee both major codes being on Nine from 2032.
Media journalist and Unmade founder Tim Burrowes told Crikey that Seven appears to be stuck.
“For Seven, the only thing worse than winning [the football rights] is losing them,” Burrowes said.
“The dynamic at Seven when the [AFL] deal came along was that they’d seen what happened when Network 10 gave up its AFL rights [in 2011] — the audience collapsed and never recovered.
“If they lose the deal, they lose the audience, and that’s a much more immediate problem.”
Burrowes said that investment appeared to be moving away from linear television.
“I think that dollars have moved away from television to other parts of the media, certainly platforms, faster than we know that they expected. It’s certainly faster than when they signed. If you look at the most recent set of numbers, it still suggests that there’s quite a big shift away from the networks.”
The potential acquisition of AFL rights would see Nine hold the rights to both major football codes, which hasn’t happened since 2006 and is something that executive sources speaking to Crikey said may be a challenge. In any case, it is understood that the AFL is very satisfied with its current broadcast partners.