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Seven, Foxtel win AFL rights

The AFL has confirmed the details of its 2012-2016 broadcast rights, awarded jointly to Seven, Foxtel and Telstra at $1.25b.

The AFL has confirmed the details of 2012-2016 broadcast rights, awarded jointly to the Seven Network and Foxtel / Austar.

Seven will have the rights to a minimum of four matches per round plus Finals, the Brownlow Medal and the Grand Final. In NSW, Qld and ACT games will played live on 7mate. In Victoria and Tasmania Friday night games will now be live, with a 30 minute delay in SA and a “reduced delay” in WA. Better Homes and Gardens will be moving where necessary.

Saturday night and Sunday arvo will be live. Saturday arvo games will be live in NSW, ACT, Qld but delayed in Vic, SA, WA and Tas.

Seven would not confirm if games would be in HD.

Outside Victoria all state-based teams will be seen in their respective states on Free to Air.

All finals will be live in all states.

Foxtel will have rights to all 9 weekly games played live and uninterrupted in every state in HD, plus the Brownlow Medal except the Grand Final. Foxtel will also revive its dedicated AFL channel. It also gets live pre-season games.

Telstra gets live mobile and IPTV rights via T-Box for every weekly game.

The value of the rights is the $1.253 billion fee the league was aggressively pursuing.

The AFL will move the start times of some games, with Friday nights now 7:50pm AEST.

The deal was announced by AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick and CEO Andrew Demetriou. It included Seven Network CEO David Leckie and Foxtel’s CEO Kim Williams.

David Leckie said, “Today’s agreement between Seven and the Australian Football League will play a key role in driving the future development of Seven in a competitive market.

“It’s a win for Seven and also importantly for the millions of football fans who flock to our coverage on free-to-air television. We look forward to bringing this great game to all Australians on the Seven Network.”

Seven has not ruled out sub-licensing games, potentially with TEN.

Kim Williams added, “This is a great day for Australian sports fans who love the AFL because for the first time they will be able to see every game of the AFL live, get real choice over which network to watch their team on, and they’ll have the option of watching AFL games on their mobiles, personal computer, Microsoft Xbox 360 or Telstra T-box.”

The announcement follows an exit by the TEN Network from joint rights with Seven and a bid by the Nine Network.

The revamped Anti-Siphoning List allows for more use of multichannels by broadcasters, but does not require live broadcasts except for the Grand Final.

This post updates.

86 Responses

  1. Why does this Always have to end up AFL v.s NRL? both sports have over a hundred years of history in their home states & are always going to be more popular than the other.

  2. Merryl Lynch reported

    cost the inflation is: free-to-air be years +4, pay-TV per (all games) +125 per cent and online/mobile +67 per The cent.

    I guess Ch 7 has the view that it gets a halo effect from AFL and has done everything possible to keep costs down. Foxtel needs content to increase subscribers and Telstra needs content to attract customers. All in the face of changing technology with IPTV threatening Foxtel particularly.

    I’m predicting next broadcast rights will see Online and Mobile increase a by a huge margin again.

  3. @ Guy: The FTA networks don’t want every game. That is the thing. They need Foxtel showing games.

    @ Jarred: Kim Williams was on radio and said that in Qld/Nsw it is close to 40% penetration but only 30% in Victoria.

  4. If the NRL outrates the AFL on foxtel, doesn’ that just indicate that more people have foxtel in Sydney and Brisbane than the AFL states. The argument that NRL is a better TV deal because it outrates AFL on foxtel is meaningless really. With this new AFL TV deal, more people in AFL states will subsribe to foxtel and then the trend may change. Pay TV ratings don’t really mean much becuase not everyone has it, no meaninful statistics can be drawn from them. Can anyone find out the percentrage of people that have foxtel in each of our captial ctiies????

  5. Foxtel tell us they won’t charge us for the AFL Channel. As if i am expected to believe that. We will be charged more and they will backflip on not charging us. I know Foxtel. They have done it to us in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Its a complete and utter joke Foxtel get everything. Its wrong. It should all be shown on FTA not Foxtel. Thats the thing here. The AFL thinks its done the best deal but when you break it down its not that great. PayTV wins and its bull. Sorry but thats the truth. They just threw the FTA’s under a bus.

  6. Nick, the NRL won’t be half-owned by News Ltd when the deal is being negotiated. News is exiting the NRL and an independent commission (ARL) is being established, which will negotiate the new deal.

    But it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the NRL was brought to Ten for at least one game a week (Mondays). The Monday night NRL ratings on Foxtel are usually the #1 programme of the week for Foxtel (outrating the digital multi-channels) and would only increase if put on FTA.

  7. What a shame that Foxtel didn’t get all games. I hate sport on FTA as it is a waste of programming and means I miss out on movies etc that would have otherwise been shown. Sport is never free on FTA anyway as you pay for it though higher product prices from advertisers. Sport should be on cable only.

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