Seven West Media and Foxtel are at loggerheads over live matches in AFL-mad markets like Adelaide and Perth, as the race for the league’s broadcast rights hots up.
The AFL is trying to entice Seven West Media and Foxtel to up their bids for television rights to as close to $600m annually as possible, in an effort to keep the incumbent broadcasters in place until at least 2029 and as ViacomCBS-owned Network Ten considers a potential knockout bid for all free-to-air and streaming rights to the code.
So much speculation, and from a Nine owned paper. Wonder if this does then favours if they’re considering a bid at all for any of the available packages from the AFL.
Been Paramount for long enough now for them to know their parent companies new corporate name.
What is atrocious about all of this is they’re not going for the largest bid. They’re trying to push current rights holders to stump up more when there is someone already willing and able to pay the cash they’re after. This is Stockholm syndrome by the afl. The seven fox deal is a dud and has got to go. There is no discussion about getting more exclusivity for free to air and they’re willing to dud Adelaide and Perth viewers by placing lucrative games behind pay walls in those markets.
Makes you wonder why any international media would want to deal with Australian sports and bid on rights when this sort of thing is happening plus the constant leaking of supposedly confidential information.
I hope 10 and Paramount get the rights. I’ll be bitterly disappointed if they don’t. Surely Fox and 7 can’t find an extra $130m per year to beat Paramount/10.
New incumbents can only mean a good thing, fresh feel to the game. Viewers get lost at trying to find when its on week in week out.
Rights deal after rights deal is corrupt in this country. How can people act in god faith when they are undercut by nonsense. Bids should be submitted, reviewed and assessed then awarded based on the criteria set by the commission. This secret back and forth when favored outlets is a disaster and corrupt as fuck.
Can’t compare. A-League was long abused by Foxtel and is not really a main sport. There are only three large sports deals in this country: AFL, NRL and Cricket.
Tennis is lesser given it’s only for 2 weeks. Olympics is only once every four years. Soccer isn’t in the big three.
Really speaks to 10/Paramount’s position in the industry that even offering the most money may not be enough. Sports orgs simply do not want to deal with them it seems.
Probably lack of confidence from 10’s seemingly continual retrenching, the tinpot news service and lack of a primetime schedule/base that don’t give off confident vibes. They don’t scream ‘stable’ from the outside, even with Paramount’s direction.
Remember it’s not just about the on-air product there’s also the considerable work that goes in off-air and there may be a lack of confidence in 10’s personnel.
The AFL had a great relationship with them in the past. They’d hire the right people. 10 actually do a better job when it comes to nurturing the relationships than the other mob. Seven just phone it in and treat the rights like shit.
11 years ago, since which their entire programming, including sports and news and all its on-air and off-air staff have been blown-up, to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of personal and hundreds of millions of dollars. 2011 their last dominant year (only at times even then) really.
OnAir makes one of the best points this thread has seen.
I’m presuming this is that ‘flip flop’ clause or whatever, AKA the FTA simulcast of STV matches outside of Melbourne, obviously the AFL territories in Adelaide and Perth of particular disagreement?
Agree with Cynic, who/why/how is leaking such info. Wonder what the AFL, Seven and Foxtel (or News Corp and Telstra) would think about seeing this in the media, though suspiciously the latter’s masthead?