Any idea as to what The Australian has said about the media broadcast rights. I haven’t got access to view the article. Just came out a few minutes ago.
If anyone can read it
I can’t read it but it looks like a news corp hit piece to drive down the value of the rights based on the first two sentences.
is NewsCorp getting cold feet because of all the backlash this week about people having to fork out money to watch their team on TV.
I doubt it’s cold feet. I think it’s fear and veiled threats to the AFL that it won’t get a large rights fee if they can’t get the WA and SA games live and exclusive.
I hate that in Australia our sports rights negotiations are played out in the media. This doesn’t happen elsewhere. Sports companies seem to be beholden to News Corp and are scared of being destroyed by them. This is just appalling management and really does the sports fans a disservice.
The article makes the following points:
- Gillon McLachlan is committed to inking the next broadcast deal before the end of August
- The shift in the broadcasting landscape and softening economic conditions means it’s increasingly likely the league will have to sell the rights for less than initially thought
- The Australian understands that Ten never made a formal offer for the rights (which was reported to be a $600m a year deal). A Ten spokeswoman declined to comment.
- Rather, the AFL used Ten’s rumoured interest as a ‘stalking horse’, to drive up Seven and Foxtel’s bid
- Last weeks campaign by West Coast Chief Executive Trevor Nisbett, Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir, WA premier Mark McGowan, and Seven owned newspaper The West Australian, to ensure matches involving WA clubs are shown exclusively on FTA, raised eyebrows in the media industry
- Should AFL matches involving WA and SA teams be exclusively shown on FTA, the value of the rights will almost certainly fail to meet the ambitious targets of the AFL’s executives - and this scenario also affects the financial bottom line of all AFL clubs who rely on revenue from broadcast rights
That’s highly unlikely to happen. As such, any and all speculation about that is probably meaningless.
wonder why 10 never bid for the AFL, when they should be trying to get as many sports as they can when they come up for renewal.
Seems a little contradicting?
Then again, The Australian originally published this previous article, so who knows. But then there’s the TV Tonight article?
…which again quotes The Australian.
Although, not to mention The Age article, they would have had to obtain this information from somewhere:
So basically a confirmed Seven/Fox deal. Sad.
not true until the fat lady sings.
Yes I was about to say… the fuckwits at the Australian are the ones who reported the alleged 10 bid and now they are saying they haven’t bid.
This is all speculation. If the AFL only ever intend on having one intended outcome then they’re negligent at best in any face value negotiations.
10 always remain tight lipped as opposed to seven and fox. This is all a mess. Sounds like if they go with the same existing deal it will be an abject failure by the AFL.
I think it’ll go to 10/P+ The Age said they submitted a $3bn bid after Gil met with Paramount executives
Will the correct information please stand up?
I’m not exactly siding with their perspective, but it seems evident there are conflicting sources.
Not necessarily
The Australian reported the information they had at the time - if the new information in the latest article is to be believed, the source of that original information may have in fact been the AFL.
I don’t think this one is quite over yet - if the 10/P+ “offer” was used by the AFL to try and drive up other bids, then the news about Fox wanting greater exclusivity in SA/WA fits a push to extract a better deal.
Just read the article - struck me as a run of the mill article from News, transparently pushing News’ agenda.
ie. Stop dicking us around and get the deal sorted. Stop negotiating with 10. Don’t let Seven show all WA/SA team matches. We’ll lower our bid if any of those happen.
Was one unnamed source too without quoting anyone from a different organisation.
And it did occur to me that perhaps it’s less likely that you would push out an article like this if things were going perfectly for you at the negotiating table.
By the looks of it, The Age/SMH have had writers on the AFL beat cover this story, whilst The Australian have used their media reporters. That may have something to do with the type of information that is coming out.
As much as I am hoping for a change of scenery (and that I’m wrong about this), this has always had a feeling of inevitability that Seven/Fox are going to end up with it again. That being said, I don’t buy the reports that 10 never submitted a bid all along, and there’s still every chance there’s a late bidding war.
However, lets say that 10 have had a very sudden change of heart for some reason - how much would all this bluster from News Corp and especially SWM have played a part in such a thing happening? SWM have orchestrated an extremely noisy campaign in the last week (even in yesterday’s Sunday Times, they were still writing opinion pieces on this) which has had a somewhat threatening tone towards the AFL. Whilst this is really not surprising, it does show just how hostile Seven are now towards sporting organisations, which in my opinion is completely unnecessary and very, very unprofessional.
If Foxtel games for Adelaide and Perth teams were to be shown exclusively, would this mean teams in those cities would get more games produced by Seven?
I’ve wondered this too and surely it would, which isn’t a great thing for Victorian club fans or Seven.
The AFL draw would have to be manicured to favour SA and WA teams. Could see more Showdowns and Derbies on Seven plus games against big drawing Victorian clubs, Collingwood, Carlton, Richmond, Hawthorn and Melbourne.