Fox and Seven get a large input over the allocation of matches to certain slots. We could see a Showdown on a Thursday night again in 2025, but it’s highly unlikely we’d see a Q-Clash or Sydney Derby on a Thursday or Friday night.
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Given GWS and the Swans performance, I would say there could be a chance - still a small chance, but higher than if they were both losing games every week.
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No chance in hell. Even if the AFL won’t admit it their priority is a commercially driven fixture. No matter how well the Swans and Giants are doing on the field, it cannot be justified putting them in primetime on national TV given the low viewership it will attract.
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It’s worth noting that the inaugural Sydney Derby (also the Giants’ inaugural AFL match) was held as a standalone Saturday night match to start the 2012 AFL season.
Since then there have been four Sydney Derby finals, but no regular season FTA Derbies outside of New South Wales.
There has also never been a FTA QClash aired outside of Queensland, and there hasn’t been a FTA Western Derby (held as a standalone match on a Friday night) since 2005.
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Both sides prefer a Saturday for the Derby as well
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Hopefully not, it’s a much better broadcast when produced via Fox.
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And that’s saying something considering Fox commentators aren’t even at the ground most interstate matches.
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Does it really matter now that Fox will have their own commentary for every game?
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Depends if he’s talking about commentary or camerawork.
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I’m pretty certain that Fox Footy will use Seven’s camera feeds for games produced by Seven, overlaying their own Fox graphics where possible. They’ll have their own commentary teams calling those games, either on-site in converted radio commentary boxes or remotely from Fox Footy HQ—essentially following the same approach as the arrangement Fox League has with the NRL and Nine.
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Don’t the same camera people do the games regardless of whoever broadcasts, since NEP does the broadcasts for all the men’s games?
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That’s correct, I’m referring to the over-all picture so things like comms, directing, graphics etc, the camerawork is almost irreverent as it’s so similar between 7 and FOX.
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Well from next year if Seven is the host broadcaster a Showdown, you’ll still be able to watch it with the Fox Footy team and look.
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Will be curious to see how far Fox goes in terms of modifying the visual coverage of Seven matches.
Fox League is pretty hands off bar the scoreboard and end of the match to avoid showing Nine’s interviews, whereas the BBL they frequently show different angles between balls due to 7 & Fox having different players mic’d up.
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Not new information but the article has some insights on what 9, 7 & Fox will do in 2025.
Former Adelaide captain Rory Sloane has emerged as a contender to replace Cornes on Nine’s flagship football show, Footy Classified Two industry sources, who would not be quoted because no deal has been reached, confirmed Nine (owner of this masthead) had approached Sloane,
However, this masthead can reveal there are Fox Footy staff already concerned about the prospect of heavy travel commitments from a Thursday through to a Sunday, and some say it’s unclear whether commentary for all games will be at the venue or in the Melbourne studio. “No one yet knows how that will look yet,” said an industry source, who did not wish to be named publicly. A Foxtel spokesman declined to comment because the AFL fixture had not yet been released.
Industry sources, who did not wish to be named for confidentiality reasons, said the AFL was considering up to 21 Thursday night matches, up from 14 weeks of Thursday matches in 2024, before the finals.
The increase would mean the overall number of free-to-air games would remain the same as under the previous agreement, ensuring supporters without pay TV or access to streaming were not disadvantaged. The AFL was contacted for comment.
could this mean that from R16 - R21, 7 will show Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday games?
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Seems highly likely - they would definitely need some rounds where they broadcast four games in order to ensure the same amount of games are shown on FTA.
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Have it been specified what the broadcast arrangements for Saturday matches for Northern Territory and Tasmania are like, under the new broadcast deal? At the moment, NT and Tasmania follow Victoria as their local station Southern Cross relays programming from Seven Melbourne. But with Tasmania Devils entering the AFL competition in 2028, the arrangements will certainly change.
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Not yet, but I say it’s likely that Tasmania would get local games either live or on delay, to keep it in line with the other Non-Victorian states. Apparently the deal was done with a 19th team (presumably a Tasmania team) in mind, so it might be that there is something in the finer print, but hasn’t been revealed publicly:
McLachlan said the new broadcast arrangement, which will expire in nine years, “contemplates” a 19-team competition as the AFL gets closer to making a call on Tasmania’s bid for a licence. The outgoing AFL boss said the broadcast deal didn’t change the equation for Tasmania’s hope of a standalone team.
As for the NT, considering they aren’t getting a team for now, I guess they would probably continue to broadcast the full Seven Melbourne schedule, including all games that air on Seven Melbourne.
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I’m going to bet that after a couple of rounds games will be studioed. There’s no way they’re calling a Sunday afternoon game with everyone at the ground in Adelaide or GWS.
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It will be interesting to see if this deal will affect the AFL’s international broadcast rights from 2026 season onwards. At the moment, the rights are scattered across several broadcasters including TNT Sports, Fox Sports US, ABC Australia, Sky Sport NZ etc.
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