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.
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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.
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- Tagged with AFL, Better Homes and Gardens, Brownlow Medal
86 Responses
Will this new AFL channel on Foxsports be available in both SD and HD, or will I have to upgrade my subscription from SD to HD to get it? All the other Foxsports channels (1, 2 and 3) are available in both SD and HD.
It’s a win for foxtel for certain but I’m not sure how seven are going to break even. Thousands of people will now turn to foxtel (as not all games are live on FTA still) and people will start abandoning FTA. The seven guy at the press conference seemed pretty annoyed about having to move BH&G, so they didn’t really get what they want.
By the way, if anyone is considering turning to foxtel, bargain with the call centre staff. The package to get AFL (Get Started + Sports) is $60 a month ($720 a year ) but I got that package for ($572 a year) since I got free installation, free first month, $16 for next 2 months and $60 for remaining 9 months. Thats only $1.567 a day, pretty cheap really.
@Bogues: Exactly, how I feel. Seeing, us in QLD go from our local teams game being shown, on the main channel in primetime, not midnight: (thanks Ten, by the way, for committing to the AFL in QLD, especially straight off the first Lions premiership), to being a marquee product of a multichannel, is more of a downgrade.
It will be sad to see that some of QLD’s great AFL moments of the near future won’t have that wide audience, that they were used to for the last few years.
This is good news to see that the AFL channel is not an extra and I’m very happy to pay for it to get live AFL in Perth. Don’t have Foxtel at the moment but will get it in January or February 2012 in time for the new season 😀
No more listening to the radio or checking out the websites for the results. Pay TV here I come!!!!!!!
@PJ
Seven’s current V8 contract will overlap the new AFL contract in 2012, so I guess V8s on Seven/Prime7/GWN7 into NSW, ACT, and QLD, and AFL on 7mate, with the reverse applying everywhere else.
The Bathurst 1000 always falls one to two weeks after the AFL season finishes.
hey jezza by the way better change your name cant have u being named after an afl legend
I hope they fix the sound problems with AFL games on 7mate. At the moment, the sound is terrible…sounds like they’re commentating in a tunnel.
great deal for the true afl fans. but 7 won’t change anything in their coverage. same mega wall, same bruce and tim watson and same hamish and midget wrestling camera angles. nrl fans are already bitter about this.
micheal where 2 new teams coming from mate png or new zealand no one else in aus watches it mate nsw and qld good luck
Seven has just consigned themselves to never winning weeks in Sydney and Brisbane during AFL season. AFL will be on 7mate (wont even get close to six figures there) and some low quality filler programming will be on the main channel. Bad move for Seven.
u no idea jezza typical thugby supporter no wonder melbourne the sporting capital of the world storm ,rebels no wingeing down here mate we welcolm them all u think thugby better than all other sports , keep watchin better homes and gardens mate
Is of no real consequence to most people in Sydney.
@Sam Thanks for that, never picked up that info, thought it was a pay per game or AFL Season Pass deal for it (not join Foxtel on T-Box).
Even if there is no AFL Season Pass (or pay per game), if the prices stay as they are with the Foxtel through XBox (Basic $19.95 + Sport $10 = $29.95) then I will be happy enough to pay that for the AFL Season (if Foxtel through T-Box is a no contract month to month arrangement like the XBox one is and you could cancel after AFL is over).
I wonder if this will also expand Telstra’s IPTV on other media, like LG and Samsung newer-model TVs? I love having Bigpond TV on my Samsung, adds so much more to your regular digital stuff.
Also wondering if we’ll see Foxtel provided thru the LG/Samsung series in the future to all Australians? I’d love to see it.
IPTV here we come.
From the Fox Sports website:
“Fox Sports AFL, a dedicated AFL channel, will be available at no additional charge to sports-tier subscribers.”
@sam, well picked up, telstra will only be carrying one live game a week via t-box. they have all nine games live via mobile.
any more than that one game live via iptv has to be through foxtel (and u can bet they will ensure ppl are pushed toward proper foxtel through either pricing or by quality of the product).
It’s a pity Ten didn’t bid high enough, as AFL games broadcast on One HD exclusively, would’ve helped that network out. The upside, is Seven will not make
any profit on what they’ve paid.
@cam read,
regualar t-box customers will only get one game a week live, you will need to pay for foxtel on t-box to get all 9 games live. Which is still better than having to susbscribe to foxtel properly to get the afl if you dont have a tbox.
Can someone please tell me how this new deal will be good for people in wa when we wil still have delayed friday night footy and saturday arvo?Not even chanel 10 would delay sat arvo games.1 cant imagine saturday nights games being showed live at 5pm or 5.30 before the news.
Where does this leave V8Supercar and Their 5 year deal? Saturday and Sunday Afternoon races, including the Bathurst 1000 telecast marathon?
So it’s then..
Seven – AFL and V8Supercars
Nine – NRL and Cricket
TEN – Netball and… (Basketball?)
ABC – VFL and… (Lawnbowls?)
@Craig H
lol, yeah, I got the distinct feeling that he was displeased with the deal, despite his protestations to the contrary. it was also a little eery when he repeated that he was ‘very confident’ in free tv around 4 times, when avoiding answering the actual question “why would anyone who has foxtel watch the game on 7 instead of fox sports?”.
Being entirely selfish for a minute – there is no possible justification for the half-hour delay on Friday night games into Adelaide. You pay a squillion for a product and then don’t make the most of it. Grrr.
ah…im home sick today so watched all of the media conference on Sky News…I tell ya, that David Leckie is a funny, funny man…so cutting…I certainly wouldnt want to get on his bad side!
whichever way you look at it, the next 5-year rights deal is better for the general public than the 5 years ending this year. if u do have foxtel it’s a win-win situation, if you don’t have foxtel like me, well at least you get to watch 4 live matches instead of 4 delayed matches – it’s just human nature, we always want more
This sounds like a very good result. Seven have taken a risk by making Friday night games live and having to move the higher rating Better Homes and Gardens somewhere else, but AFL fans will be happy.
Does anyone reckon that Seven is still in the game for the NRL rights? I guess if they continue to make a lot of money from their big success they are having right now, they might be able to take away the rights from Nine.
I think this is going to mean quite a lot for Channel Seven and it’s just going to strengthen their brand for sport. Nine have the Olympics next year, but at this stage, I think that Seven can still win next year by a significant margin.