30mins overrun mostly due to front bar over run
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Big brands front and centre with Seven’s AFL
2024 AFL partners and sponsors announced
Australia’s biggest brands have joined forces with Australia’s #1 winter sport and the #1 television and digital network to be part of the massive AFL 2024 season.
Kicking off tonight at 7.00pm AEDT live and free on Channel 7 and 7mate when Sydney Swans and Melbourne meet at the SCG, the 2024 season will be the biggest ever on the Seven Network with more games in prime time, more Thursday night games, more Friday night games and more Saturday night games.
The AFL Grand Final and the Brownlow Medal will again be exclusive to Seven, which will also bring fans every AFL Final; blockbuster games including Opening Night, the Grand Final replay, Gather Round, Anzac Day, Dreamtime at the ’G, The Big Freeze and the Good Friday Superclash; and much more.
This year Seven is proud to welcome Toyota, Macca’s, AAMI, Harvey Norman and Bunnings as broadcast partners.
Telstra, Coles, Sportsbet, Industry Super Funds, Hostplus, CBUS, Chemist Warehouse, NAB, Asahi Beverages, Uber, OMO Ultimate, Cash Converters, Bundaberg Brewed Drinks, Colgate- Palmolive and Virgin Australia will join Seven as broadcast sponsors, while other brands have signed on with major packages or as local market sponsors.
Seven’s extensive, unmissable broadcast coverage will be complemented by an expanded AFL Match Centre at 7NEWS.com.au and a world of special content on 7plus, including 7AFL Fast Channel, in depth team information and profiles, AFL Armchair Experts, Talking Footy, Roaming Brian and more.
In what will be a massive game changer for fans and the sport, Seven’s new digital AFL rights kick in from Seven’s exclusive coverage of the Brownlow Medal and the Grand Final this year. For the first time, all Australians will have live and free digital access to the nation’s favourite sport, week in, week out.
Across 2023, Seven’s AFL coverage reached 17 million Australians. The AFL Grand Final alone reached 7.83 million people with an average total TV audience of 3.98 million, up 22% in 2022.
The Brownlow Medal reached 3.07 million people and had a total TV audience of 1.28 million, up 11% year-on-year and its biggest audience since 2017.
Seven West Media Chief Revenue Officer, Kurt Burnette, said: “AFL is in a unique and strong place. Last year, more than eight million fans went through the turnstiles. AFL and AFLW memberships are at record highs. Free to air TV continues to dominate AFL viewing, with big increases in the audiences of key games last year.
“AFL is clearly the #1 winter code, reaching more people, more light viewers, more families and more females than any other sport. Seven is the only place to get the most powerful 30 seconds in marketing: the ad break after goals,” he said.
“At Seven, we love delivering AFL to millions of people each week and for our partners, from sponsors to spot buys. We will continue to collaborate and innovate to connect those brands to the fans to drive meaningful outcomes. We are delighted to have our 2024 partners and sponsors on board, with some very exciting creative executions, innovations and ideations to come from our many returning and new partners.”
Seven’s National Sport Sales Director, Rob Maclean, said: “This year’s schedule will maximise audience and fan engagement outcomes to deliver the best possible platform for brands.
“We have created more ways into, and greater accessibility around, key points of the season, including blockbuster April with the Gather Round and Anzac Day fixtures and of course Grand Final week – Australia’s Super Bowl moment and an amazing builder of brands.
“This year there will be more AFL in prime time than ever before; more coverage on Channel 7 in the NSW and Queensland markets which means higher ratings; more exclusive content and shows on 7plus and fan engagement via 7NEWS.com.au; and a lot more,” he said.
“Seven’s AFL provides the most powerful 30 second ad break in Australia after every goal, where brands can supercharge their creative within the drama of live AFL moments. This is inventory that is accessible to both sponsors and other major advertisers buying into footy, and there is no ad placement more impactful and more effective in capturing strong, active attention.”
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They used to have a Seven Sport studio/set, the one that opened-up with the polished floorboard and wooden shelving look complete with lounge, Docklands backdrop and various memorabilia. Other programs such as Sunrise would often film here. Probably went after AFL Game Day got axed in 2020 with the season suspension due to COVID breaking out?
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Seven Melbourne need a general purpose set that can be interchangeable for different programs. Similar to what GTV9 currently have, that can be utilised for various general and sports programmes, also elections coverage etc.
Hopefully, this is allowed for in the design at the HSV Headquarters in Collins Street next year.
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Yes I’m aware, but this is Australia. That’s part of their contracts that they have to promote (more mention) other coverage.
I thought it is the same studio that The Front Bar films in?
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It was.
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That 7Plus logo on the mics needs to go. It’s blatant false advertising.
First time they have a message like that during the footy or cricket?
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Is there any reason why Seven couldn’t just relay the NSW/QLD Schedule on 7Plus into SA, VIC and WA, and likewise the 7Mate VIC, SA and WA schedule into NSW and QLD?
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They used to have a message within the live stream EPG box/descriptor when it was still titled “AFL” but would air Border Int’l, but later removed that, changed the title to ‘Best of Border and Police shows’ and made it like a FAST channel (in some attempt to try and trick viewers), however did add a banner note to the 7Plus home page ‘looking for the AFL?’
Maybe they still received a lot of complaints or confusion, so also added this crawler in-program to the 7Plus live stream break-away during AFL?
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The text on the scoreboard watermark during ads looks different this year.
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I notice Channel 7 showing another repeat of ABBA Silver ABBA Gold and often re-run film Made of Honor (2008) starring Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan tonight in Brisbane and Perth… What are they going to pull, like somewhere in the 60k and 30k ranges respectively!?
Should’ve just played-out the AFL season opener nationally on the main channel. That movie oddly seeing a rare 7flix split schedule airing on that channel in other markets (usually it’s 7mate), with mate showing what was the recent Saturday line-up of flight docos.
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Hamish McLachlan is anchoring tonight’s telecast, despite his confirmed prolonged LSL ‘sabbatical’ this year in France with his family. It was noted by media and Seven Sport publicity that he would still appear at a few significant events, appears Opening Round was one of them.
Also maybe because he’d be better known to Nsw audiences, along with James Brayshaw vs the other 7AFL talent, especially for non-die hard or casual viewers.
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It is a temporary fill - the line-up will be Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly and America’s Got Talent Fantasy League in states not showing AFL on the main channel. AFL main channel states will see those shows on a multi channel
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They might rate higher, but still not exactly riveting alternate programming are they, at least they’re first runs, I guess in this day and age of FTA no point wasting top raters during split scheduling/ AFL.
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Both shows are female skewing against male skewing AFL
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Coverage finished at 11.18pm aedt, with a Sydney Swans cleaner having a talk with the three presenters at the end of the coverage.
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1 hour post game show, also well over-run from 11pm scheduled finish
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I think the main reason they didn’t do this is time zone differences. AFL on the main channel in Brisbane at 7.30pm might have been OK, but at 6.30pm they would have had to sacrifice half of the news and Home and Away which they weren’t prepared to do. Same for Perth.
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