Fox Footy are encoring it right now (and I imagine also uploaded to Kayo), not sure if they’ve edited it for themselves at all, in fact bang on 6pm as Seven’s finished
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I was thinking, hard to believe that today’s AFL GF total audience at an absolute best will probably only equal the metro for the Matildas (which also had another 2.6m odd from regional and 7Plus)!
She was the announcer for the pre-match entertainment (from the entrance of retiring players to Mike Brady’s performance).
That’s because they have to be ‘traditional’ play-by-play commentators on TV whereas Triple M’s coverage style allows them to be more free-wheeling and excitable.
It was promoted near the end of the extended post-game coverage on 7mate (along with a message for 7Plus viewers that they needed to go to the linear channel to watch the replay).
Thank you Jeffmister, that’s good then. So, until the new broadcast deal kicks in, looks like replays including VOD are still with Foxtel for streaming, even though somehow they approved Seven to commence the GF live streaming a couple of years early, maybe because of the ‘other platforms’ loophole being successful the last couple of years?
An example of BT’s commentary at the Grand Final
https://x.com/laceoutofficial/status/1708092196543693256?s=46&t=p849RpnWCeGGuzI4QaykiA
Saturday’s game soars, up 22% on 2022
The spectacular 2023 AFL season came to a heart-racing close on Saturday with Collingwood defeating the Brisbane Lions in the 2023 AFL Grand Final at the MCG, live, exclusive and free on Seven and 7plus.
The Seven Network’s coverage of the game reached a national audience of 4.98 million Australians on Channel 7 and 756,000 on 7plus.
The showdown between Collingwood and the Brisbane Lions is the most watched TV program in 2023 outside of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™, scoring an average total television audience of 3.75 million viewers, including 3.3 million viewers nationally and 2.47 million in the capital cities. An additional 441,000 viewers watched live on 7plus – the biggest ever audience for an AFL match on a streaming platform.
Seven’s 2023 AFL Grand Final total audience is up 22% on last year’s Final between the Geelong Cats and the Sydney Swans.
Collingwood’s epic four-point victory over Brisbane, which will go down in history as one of the greatest Grand Finals of all time, dominated its timeslot in the capital cities with a 92.2% share of viewers during the game, a 94.8% share of 25 to 54s and a 96.7% share in 16 to 39s.
In Melbourne, the Grand Final recorded a 97.4% share of viewers during the game, with Sydney recording a 79.5% share of viewers in its timeslot, and Brisbane a 87.9% share.
Managing Director Seven Melbourne and Head of Network Sport, Lewis Martin, said: “Seven’s live, free and exclusive coverage of the unmissable premiership decider reminds us of just how much we all love footy. It’s the passion of the fans that elevates footy from being a sport to a unique spectacle that unites the nation.
“The AFL is Australia’s number one winter sport, it’s a core part of our DNA, and Seven’s expert commentary, insights and coverage showcase the entertainment and exceptional competition of the AFL like no one else.”
Seven West Media Chief Revenue Officer, Kurt Burnette, said: “Seven’s AFL coverage reached an incredible 13.77 million viewers this season, once again delivering unrivalled reach, attention and addressability on a massive scale, across every demographic and every screen. Australia’s leading brands were showcased to 53% of Australians.
“Seven’s delivery of mass culture experiences will only continue as we head into the iconic Bathurst 1000 across Seven and 7plus in October next weekend, with exciting new seasons of SAS Australia, Big Brother and the Summer of Cricket, coming soon. The biggest change to sports streaming rights in recent history takes place next year, when Seven adds the full digital rights to AFL and cricket. That will bring massive audiences in 2024 and beyond across the screens of Seven, with the new rights unlocking the full audience potential of free sport for advertisers and brands.”
The huge audience numbers for the AFL Grand Final follow a highly successful 2023 Final Series.
Excluding the Grand Final, the Final Series reached 7.9 million Australian nationally, with an average broadcast audience on Seven of 1.1 million.
Seven’s AFL Grand Final
Seven Network is #1 nationally and in the capital cities so far in the OzTAM 2023 survey year, and #1 nationally in 25 to 54s and 16 to 39s.
Is this the first year they have been allowed to stream the GF on 7plus
Much better than bumbling Richardson, Burgoyne and Johnson.
On every device/platform yes.
The majority (going off the increase from a previous high which was 197k IIRC) would’ve come from 7Plus to Connected TVs (that is casting the 7Plus platform from another device to a bigger screen), such as from 7Plus iPad to a Smart TV or Chromecast.
The previous couple of GFs, were only Connected TVs per sé, where 7Plus platform was already in-built into the software (such as Samsung or Apple Smart TVs, Fetch, Play Station, etc etc) not via the 7Plus app itseelf on another device at all (such as website or mobile) and then casting.
I’m sure plenty were just live streaming from their laptops/iPads/mobile phones too, albeit smaller screens.
All up, looks like 7Plus website/mobile (whether watching on smaller device screens or casting to a bigger screen) added ~250k, that’s very significant!
That’ll only grow in coming years, especially once the next deal begins and all games are included and the marketing/promotion for it ramps up - do they get replays etc or do those digital rights remain with Telstra/Foxtel ie. Kayo for example?
Is it next year or the year after that 7plus will have streaming rights on 7plus?
They already do for the Grand Final
It’ll be when the next broadcast rights agreement begins in 2025.
Interesting how both Nine mastheads (Age and AFR) today have run stories on yesterday’s audience and mentioned that fact about the Matildas front and centre, yet neglected to mention were also on the same broadcaster Seven anyway (in a win-win). Nobody, including the AFL or Seven, expected yesterday to get close, even a new record for the AFL wouldn’t have! If it had, there’d be an inquiry into OzTAM.
I’m sure AFL Films (and yeah, it’s probably just part of AFL Media now, but I still know it as that) would have wanted clean feeds because of the sharing of those games (especially the Ten ones) for replay on Fox Footy mk1 I imagine - but it is possible that that indeed wasn’t the case and they would have had to have gone to original sources to get that.
I do recall issues with games after the mid-90s after Seven started adding their logo more in things like score graphics (roughly 1996) - when they were replayed on Fox Footy, they ended up replacing the Seven logo with the AFL logo of the time; and the blurring out of the watermark that certainly appeared in 2000 [I can’t remember whether the network one that snuck in in 1999 was after the GF].
Easy to forget the huge amount of bad blood with the 2001-into-02 rights changeover; something that of course only worsened when Seven did Sportswatch in 2002, to try and stay involved with the footy without the rights, as well as their paranoia flung just about everywhere about the circumstances re: shuttering C7 Sport that year too.
I suspect a lot of water has run under the bridge since then…
The AFL today announced the fixture for the 10th and final round of 2023 AFLW season, including a Friday evening match in Mackay and the grand final rematch between Brisbane and Melbourne at the same venue where last year’s decider took place.
According to the upfronts:
Seven’s full digital rights to the AFL kick in with the Brownlow Medal and the AFL Grand Final in 2024, followed by the AFLW (which is already running on 7plus) then the full 2025 season.
Didn’t they already show the Brownlow and AFL GF on 7+ this year Or was the Brownlow limited to certain devices like the grand final last year?
No it was the same as this year, unsure why they are advertising this as new…
I think they are basically saying from that moment on you can watch any 7 game on 7+ including into 2025
No I know, I was talking about the Brownlow and GF: