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AFL may move the goalposts on plans for ‘live only’

A media report today claims the AFL will not insist on games being played live in the next broadcast rights contract.

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A media report today claims the AFL will not insist on games being played live in the next broadcast rights contract.

Seven is reportedly keen to retain the option of playing a game live or delayed, in order to play Better Homes and Gardens on Friday nights.

With Seven at the bidding table the price for the AFL rights is expected to top the $1b margin, up from $780m.

Seven and TEN are again bidding together for shared games.

Nine has committed to live games if it wins the rights.

Last November AFL boss Andrew Demetriou said, “I don’t think people want replays or delays … hopefully Channel 7 will get into the 21st century.”

The revised anti-siphoning list gives networks the option to play weekly matches on digital channels, but for the most part it does not compel them to do so.

The new deal will run from 2012-16.

Source: news.com.au

23 Responses

  1. there is no one that i know who want replays of the afl no way everyone wants it live all the time foxtel do it live everytime all the time and as far as i know so do channel ten i agree no one cares about better homes and gardens people want there sport personally i hope that channel 7 do not have the rights to the afl after the 2012 season give it to channel nine ten and foxtel thats what i belive will happen next year

  3. Dont forget the home and away and better homes and gardens excuse for not showing foootball live will be not on next year as they will be able to show it live on the multi channels

  4. I do not get why the AFL won’t protect their product.

    I would follow the lead of the NFL on two fronts.

    Firstly – offer rights to FTA networks at a lower cost than Pay TV. Why not have three or four FTA networks with AFL rights? All games shown live nationally, no exceptions.

    Secondly – schedule one stand alone Sunday night game at 6:30pm eastern every week. Two rules for this game are that it must be shown live nationally on FTA and it must be in Full HD.

    In my opinion, given a couple of years, a Sunday night game on FTA would end up being the highest rating game of the round. Have a look at NBC Sunday night football ratings in the NFL. This games starts at 8:20pm eastern in the US.

  5. I agree, the only thing the TV stations care about is ratings, if most stop watching Friday night football, changes will occur. This is the season to send the message, so if you know someone with a ratings box, please convince them to stay away from 7 on a friday night!

  8. Simple, the afl must insist that the friday night games Must be shown live(whether it is 7,9 or 10), they can find an alternative timeslot for BH&G surely? I guess though, the afl will want the Billion mark for the rights, but having to accept the terms by the networks who purchase them (No Live games on Friday night), which is bad for the general public, who have to put up with the arrogance of the FTA networks(in this case, channel 7).

  9. The reality is that BH&G actually makes more money than football does for Seven. Additionally… they are contractually bound to play the show on friday nights because of the tie ins with the magazine publishers etc…..

    Nine are more than happy to play AFL live in to Melbourne if they get the rights because it matches nicely with their NRL committments in NSW & QLD where they show a double header on fridays.

    If Nine got the rights…. we will see a scenario where AFL is played live on the major channel and NRL live on the secondary (in VIC, SA etc.. ) and vice versa in NSW and QLD.

    Additionally…. Nine will onsell the saturday games to ten/one as they did in the 2002-2006 rights, but keep the final series and GF. Remember 10 is contractually bound to bid with 7 in the next rights deal…. but if they lose, it doesnt preclude them from having (some of) the rights.

    That said…. I am assuming Nine will get the rights. I personally think they will because the AFL isnt a fan of the way 7 has treated their product, particulary on Sundays.

  11. Why don’t Ten/One have the exclusive rights, instead of sharing it with Seven? For AFL fans in QLD, on Seven the Friday night games are delayed til the early hours of Saturday morning, while the Saturday night games on Ten are usually only delayed by an hour, usually only a half-hour delay when the Lions play and take the Fox Sports commentary. And that’s when they needed to show it on both Ten and One. So Ten show non-AFL states more respect with AFL than Seven do with the AFL states? Seems weird…

  12. AFL take a leaf out of the Cricket Australia’s book and have live Games, used to be in the City the game was shown we only got part of the Game, they switched to live all day and look what happened, attendances at Games went up (and this year still did even with Australia going badly).

    The rights are for 2012-2016, so 1 year of those rights fall into Analogue still being on, the other 4 years are when Analogue is turned off. So Digital will be in full swing and no reason for it not being on a secondary Digital channel live (if people don’t have Digital, they won’t have TV anyway). Sure it may have to be on an SD Channel because of not having compulsory in all TV’s/Set Top Boxes SD and HD and some not having access to HD, but all the same the option is still there.

    Analogue turn-off is coming and now is the time to plane ahead, not 4 years after the turn-off.

  13. i am almost speechless. i cannot believe in the year 2011 (and 2012-2017) i will not be able to watch friday night football live – even if i am willing to pay for it (which i am!!!).

    a 1 hour delay for east coast (and 1.5 hr delay for central) is bad enough, but 3 hours here in my home city of perth is 1950s thinking at best (why dont they just tape the game, fly it over on TAA or Ansett and put the tape in the video machine a day later)…

    kerry stokes himself should be asked the question when next a journalist speaks to him – he is afterall a perth man!

    if this pans out the way it seems to be panning out (yet again..), i will not watch channel 7 at all ever again, and will write to all the major sponsors of that network’s afl coverage to tell them that i have decided to become zen, and i will actively purchase products from their competitors (ie switch from NAB to another bank and tell them why, go to mitre 10 rather than bunnings, etc etc)

    @alastair is on the money. we shouldnt watch, and particularly, those with ratings boxes in their houses should not watch either (they afterall are the ones that matter). wish i had a ratings box… (ive never met anyone who does…)

  14. I don’t see the issue here for Seven. They have 3 channels to put them on. If they want better homes and gardens for the grandmas on ch7, by all means, do that. 7mate is supposed to be a blokes channel, so give the blokes what they want, and what they want is live football. 7 can then broadcast it on delay just like they’re doing now.

    on the other hand, if 7.30pm on a friday night isn’t a conveniant time for seven, then here’s a simple solution… don’t bid for that game. i’m sure someone else would be happy to take friday night footy off your hands.

  15. I’d like to see a better deal for those of us in QLD & NSW where games are often shown after midnight.

    I don’t believe that ch9 would do a better job giventhat they are already committed to NRL

  17. i just cant see how 9 can have both the AFL and NRL….not because of when to show them…but how much it will cost them to have them both…i think 9 are there to drive up the cost of the rights…so 7 and 10 dont go or can’t afford for NRL…just an opinion

  18. Seven can kiss the AFL rights goodbye if they refuse to show games live. As much as i hate Nine, if they show it live, then give it to them.
    I don’t get it, Seven is quite happy to remove Home & Away and BH&G from it’s schedule for more news when certain events happen, but they have the rights for major sports, Australian Open & AFL, and they refuse to show them live in place of these shows. It really isn’t that hard to delay H&A one more week and show Aust Open live in all cities. And it really isn’t hard to put BH&G on a Saturday night, you’ll get the same audience.

  22. Who gives a toss about Better Homes & Gardens! Why can’t they shaft it over to one of their other channels?

    I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: FTA sport in Australia is a joke.

  23. This is the test for the AFL: are they willing to sacrifice money for more conditions on broadcasters? Answer: Of course they’re bloody not! AFL:1 Public:0

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