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Report: Foxtel not keen to sub-license AFL to Free to Air

And Seven will reportedly no longer televise Saturday arvo games into Victoria.

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Foxtel will not sublicense any of its AFL games to Free to Air in 2017, and Seven will no longer televise Saturday afternoon games into Victoria, according to an AFL report.

As part of the $2.508 billion contact signed last year, Foxtel obtained the rights to host broadcast 11 more games than it had under its 2012-16 agreement.

While Foxtel would have broadcast all premiership season matches, it also had the right to on-sell 23 games to a free-to-air network, with TEN seen as the likely broadcaster of a Saturday afternoon match.

AFL.com.au is now reporting Foxtel will not sub-license the free-to-air rights to those games, opting to broadcast all games on FOX Footy.

Seven will also no longer televise Saturday afternoon games into Victoria but will continue to broadcast games featuring non-Victorian teams into their local markets.

10 Responses

  1. Commercial FTA networks can legitimately use the Live & Free watermark if they choose to! Its within there right! Fox uses Live & adbreak Free! This surely does break the antisiphoning law because now that 1 ga!e has been siphoned off to foxtel!

    1. But that’s not how the anti-siphoning list works. Whether or not the 2017 AFL games are on the list or not, the anti-siphoning laws are about FTA having the option to purchase the rights before PayTV. So Seven had the option to buy the broadcast rights before PayTV. They weren’t willing to pay enough for more games. Foxtel then gets the option to buy broadcast rights. Foxtel can buy the remaining games exclusively if they want, and comply with the anti-siphoning list. (That Seven and PayTV can bid together makes it murkier, but at its basic, that’s what it is).

      1. Nope – that might’ve been the original intent, but now that the AFL etc have cottoned on that they can sell the FTA & PayTV rights separately, that’s not how it works in practice. For many years now the anti-siphoning rules have only existed as a backstop to commercial agreements, to ensure that PayTV can’t lock-out FTA entirely.

        At best, you could probably only argue that _if_ 7 had the FTA rights to a game, _and_ PayTV didn’t, _and_ 7 decided they weren’t broadcasting it, then that game would have to be offered to the other FTA networks first before offering it to PayTV. And in practice that’ll never arise, since for many years now the list has been repeatedly amended to exclude everything except major events e.g. grand finals, state of origins, test matches, Bathurst, etc.

        1. Tex – agree the intent and practice are largely different! Though the only reason events are repeatedly amended is that, after the deals are done, having the events ‘delisted’ allows the FTAs to broadcast the games on their multi channels…. whereas if they stay on the list, the FTAs don’t have the flexibility to decide where they broadcast it (say in non-AFL/NRL states).

          1. Agree with that to the extent that it’s one reason why the lists are repeatedly amended (but not the only one).

            Ultimately, though, I think we both agree that not only the has the intent of the laws been largely bypassed by sports negotiating separate FTA & PayTV rights, but 900 characters isn’t enough to cover all the details! 😉

  2. I am not a afl fan but good on Foxtel for giving a bit back to the FTA networks as they are the first to have a go at Foxtel over broadcast rights and anti syphoning rules. Maybe a middle finger for that silly live and free watermark all the networks put up all the time.

    1. I think this is disappointing for Australia’s highest-rating and biggest sport code, it means one of Australia’s biggest cities/states misses out on Saturday afternoon footy, for the first time ever!

      By the way, why bother with the tagline “I am not an AFL fan”.

    1. Most likely not. It just means HSV7 Melbourne will televise only non-Melbourne clubs’ games at times other than Saturday afternoon. There will be at least four of these available won’t there? You can see what Foxtel is after. A rush of Melbourne footy tragics subscribing.

    2. The anti-siphoning rules don’t even come into play. The current anti-siphoning list for AFL says:

      “Each match in the Australian Football League Premiership competition, including the Finals Series, except for:
      (a) all matches to be played as part of the 2016 Australian Football League Premiership competition, including the Finals Series but excluding the Grand Final.”

      So effectively only the Grand Final was on the list this year – the only thing allowing any games to be shown on FTA was the fact the AFL sold the FTA & PayTV rights separately.

      That’s been the case for the last few years IIRC. Expect the list for 2017 to be much the same unless 7 jacks up mightily – which is unlikely…

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