This is more like it. A more balanced article that takes a small hit to the herald sun article. At the very least the AFL has gone to the market. Hopefully they’ll be able to secure a deal with anyone other than seven and fox.
The studios herald sun article made it out the deal was virtually done and no one other than seven/fox would get a look in. That narrative suits their parent company. We all know where Gil’s loyalties lie. His stupid brother working for seven is a problem.
Exactly. Unlike the NRL, the AFL is doing the right thing in seeing how much interested parties are willing to offer which in turn ensures they can sign the best deal possible.
Wild idea, but how likely would it be to see Seven, Nine and possibly 10 team up to share broadcasting rights?
Never going to happen, unless the AFL sell the rights in NFL-style (i.e. by timeslot). Even in that case it wouldn’t be “teaming up” ala 10+9/7 2000s, as it would all be separate deals.
Maybe Seven/10 and Nine/10 but not Seven/Nine.
I don’t think 9 or 10 want to share with anyone. They’ll want it all for themselves as they both have streaming services crying out for content.
9 would use it to firm up Stan and 10 could leverage their global reach to strike a deal if their parent company stumps up a huge amount of cash.
Surely you cant be serious?
While I agree with the sentence, I hope Seven can continue its association with the AFL for the next rights deal. It suffered badly in ratings from 2002 to 2004 when it didn’t have live AFL, and will be prepared this time to fend off potential challenges from Nine and 10.
Why though? They’re not entitled to it. They do a poor job at it. There have been better broadcasters than seven and they need to go away and regroup. The product they put to air is sub par.
Both the AFL and NRL have said previously that they’re happy with the current broadcast arrangements - so it’s not a significant surprise that at least one wouldn’t go back to the market if they were able to secure a mutually acceptable agreement.
That said, it is likely to be a broader interest for the AFL rights than the NRL (especially from new players) - what will make this one interesting is that in the past both sports have had roughly similar timelines for rights meaning they’ve been negotiated either concurrently or very close to each other, this year with the NRL extension the AFL are entering a market that is slightly different with Nine having a firm deal for the NRL
My money is on a substantially similar deal being the outcome.
Moving to radio for a moment:
In summary, 3AW, SEN, Triple M, ABC and K-Rock are all expected to remain as AFL broadcast partners in the next radio deal, but SEN is set to lose its status as master rights holder, with Nine Radio (owner of 3AW) keen to do its own syndication and regain control of Sports Today/Sportsday (mentioned a few times on Nine Radio Talk thread).
So, 6PR (and I guess FiveAA and 2UE) go back to taking 3AW’s coverage. Maybe more SEN coverage on their own stations in WA and SA. Makes sense since SEN have so many narrowcast licences and Nine would probably rather use their own coverage. Maybe a question around FiveAA syndicating from Nine though, probably happy enough to since they’ve started syndicating Australia Overnight recently and took 3AW’s football coverage for many years previously.
Agree, when 10 had the rights they did a good job.
Broadcasters sometimes need to lose the rights otherwise they’re coverage becomes stale.
9 with cricket - how many years did every complain about the stale identical coverage that 9 provided.
7 with AFL, who’s idea of mixing it up is adding more people to the coverage so rather than watching the footy you’re watching a clique talk about it.
They’ve had the VFL/AFL almost non-stop since the mid-20th Century.
Aware, but I’m saying when they lost it 9/10 they lifted their game when they got it back.
It’s the basic rules of a monopoly: without competition there is no requirement to innovate beyond what is required (see Nine NRL).
If Tasmania joins the League, although the State’s not as Strong in State Leagues as Victoria, South Australia & Western Australia, They shall see 2 Small Melbourne based sides join Forces to Create a New Franchise while the Northern Territory is way too Small to Support a Team in the Big League.
As has been said many a time my friend, there will be no mergers.
This is on the front page of the Age today.
It shows how free to air rating have dropped 18%. The major news from it, explains the AFL has reached out to find which broadcaster is interested in purchasing streaming rights!
Will we see a mix of all, or just one? Will this leave seven in the cold or will they join a major streaming company?