Nine torn on cricket rights. Seven scores soccer matches.
Updated: Nine may walk away from cricket rights with TEN poised to land the lot, and Seven stitches up A-League All Stars soccer.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
There are suggestions Nine may walk away from Cricket entirely after TEN’s aggressive bid for broadcast rights.
Nine is believed to have until June 3 to exercise its “last rights” clause and match TEN’s bid, estimated at $450m – $500m over five years, plus contra.
But Nine is also facing pressure from its two US hedge funds who want to float the company within the next 12 months amid a falling Aussie dollar.
CEO David Gyngell is believed to be weighing up the stark financial situation and the network’s long history as the cricket broadcaster.
TEN, which recently secured the Winter Olympics, is believed to already have the Big Bash rights, but is now poised to land the lot.
Meanwhile, Seven is understood to have acquired the rights to the A-League All Stars game against Manchester United and Melbourne Victory’s match with Liverpool, both to be played in July.
The deal, worth around $1m will see Seven screen the match on its primary channel, plus 7mate, online, and on tablets and mobile devices.
Update: Tim Worner, the CEO of the Seven Network, said: “Manchester United and Liverpool are two of the biggest brands in world sport and we are really pleased to be delivering their matches live to Australians everywhere and on every device. These are going to be huge events. They sold out straight away and we expect a big audience to be engaged before, during and after the games.
“Big, live sport – now available across not just our broadcast television platform but online and other tablet apps as well – underpins a lot of Seven’s strategy and these games certainly fit that bill. And, on a personal note, I am very happy to be working with Dave Gallop whose work I have previously admired from too far away.”
Coverage details:
Manchester United v Foxtel A League All Stars, Saturday 20 July, ANZ Stadium, Sydney (7.30pm kick off)
Sydney 1830-2200 (7)
Melbourne 1830-2200 (7Mate)
Brisbane 1830-2200 (7)
Adelaide 1800-2130 (7Mate)
Perth 1830-2200 (7)
Liverpool v Melbourne Victory, Wednesday 24 July, MCG, Melbourne (8pm kick off)
Sydney 1900-2230 (7Mate)
Melbourne 1900-2230 (7Mate)
Brisbane 1900-2230 (7Mate)
Adelaide 1830-2200 (7Mate)
Perth 1700-2030 (7Mate)
Source: AFR, The Australian.
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- Tagged with A-League, Olympics, Twenty20 Big Bash, Winter Olympics
38 Responses
@jezza – You’re right, football works well in some commercial environments: the UK’s ITV and Channel 5 are both commercial networks who broadcast games with ads at half-time, and before & after the match.
Although there have been the occasional incidents when they’ve cut to ads too soon and missed some on-field action.
It should be noted that SBS are a commercial network too, and they never interrupt the games for ads.
I somehow can’t see 7 doing that though!
The hedge funds who control Nine are turning the financial screws so tight I wonder what they will be offering the market when they try to float in 12 months time?
This is great news. I remember when Seven last had a significant football (soccer) match they didnt too well when covering it. because these two matches are in a way one-offs then they shouldnt be sticking it with loads of ads during play, because they only payed about 1million so they wouldnt need thatt many ads to cover it and make a profit even with ad revenue down these days. Meanwhile Ten getting cricket rights well its both good and bad. Ten in recent times has not treated sports well F1 before a backlash forcedthem to changem, NBL delaying friday Night Games and only doing Sunday games live into eastern states barring QLD (day light saving). I hope cricket australia have a assurity written into the contract that Ten cant treat it like crap and that all matches are LIVE into all states, if not on TEN then LIVE on ONE in HD. The analogue signal will be switched off by the time this contract comes into effect, so they wont have any excuses on showing it on ONE because the viewers will have it. In terms of The Nine Network well their fate was sealed when there former Debt holders became there owners, and considering they payed big money for a sport which only rates well in half of the nation (eastern side) this was bound to happen. When you have Hedge Funds who are not into investment just cutting costs and selling a company for a profit if they can unlike Private Equity Firms who atleast invest into a business unlike hedge funds who ussually gut it (Seven West Media example). Nine made a bad strategic move when they kept NRL now they will have no major sport in Summer which is important. Looks like more repeats of Green Acres and Giligans Island are comming to our Summer Weekends. Overall Ten winner as long as they treat this right and good for 7 and bad for Nine. These latest dovelopements further show that Ten should have started ONE HD later or earlier depending when they could get the more popular sports and then padd it out with US content in the morning all Live had they Grant Blakely and David White done that then it would have been harder for Murdoch Jnr to make an argument about shutting down a FTA sports channel.
@BigVic
It’s called soccer in Australia! We have enough football as it is.
By the way Soccer sounds better than football for Soccer! And NRL and AFL sounds better with Rugby/Football.
And that’s funny what Tim Worner said: “There two of the biggest brands in world sport” what a load of crap! Man Utd (the only good one) but Liverpool is Crap!!
Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and even Man City and Chelsea are way better.
@ pertinax…”Soccer does not work on commercial FTA.” not true unless you add the words ‘here in australia’ Soccer/Football, the world game is shown in every country around the world much of it on fta tv channels with little problem.
Channel 7 broadcasting two football (soccer) matches? This is a disaster waiting to happen.
As mentioned below they’re sure to cram in ads all over the place, as anyone who can recall their rugby coverage – another sport not really suited for commercial FTA TV – can attest to.
I also think that it’s somewhat disrespectful to the sport that 7 only show an interest when Man Utd and Liverpool visit.
Australia is not Europe. Football is a general term that can apply to any code and is therefore meaningless without context.
The FFA can put whatever petty restrictions it wants on how rights holders speak but they aren’t going to change Australian usage or dictionaries.
Soccer, an English contraction of Association Football, has been in use here for over a century and will continue to be used by people.
I don’t really watch soccer but it should just be on SBS as they have shown strong support for it.
@BigVic – The Australian national soccer team is nicknamed the Socceroos. In 2005 with the re-launch of the game in Australia as “football”, the FFA hoped the name would fade away, and for the team to be referred to as “Australia” but the name Socceroos was still used by other parts of the media, and the name “Socceroos” is again being used on the official website, programs and merchandise.
Foxtel – “Latest football, soccer, A-League and EPL news, insights and analysis, up-to-the-minute soccer stats, soccer scores, soccer results, and soccer video.”
SBS – “Visit SBS The World Game for the most comprehensive coverage of world soccer and the FIFA World Cup. It provides exclusive information on soccer world cup”.
Big Vic: but they use their heads and chests, so shouldit be called: Football/Headball/Chest ball and AFL be called football/hanball.
If it is not soccer then why is our National Team called the Socceroos!!!!!.
“live to Australians everywhere” – there’s an asterisk missing (*except Perth for ManU match).
The A-league will no doubt be happy about the potentially wider coverage on Seven but I really hope that we’re not going to have ads snuck in during corners and the like.
David
It’s Football not Soccer.
Now if only Nine would lose their NRL rights so we can finally see every game live! Not to mention the commentators are the worst in the business always whinging whereas the FOX Sports commentators actually give appropriate and correct information regarding players and events. I think this is just what Nine needs to shake things up and hopefully get the idea that viewers want live and premium coverage of all sports, no matter how long they have had rights to it.
In the old days Nine would have outbid Ten no matter what and then done a deal with Foxsports to ensure Ten got no cricket matches at all.
The hedge funds looking to offload their shares at a profit will impose some fiscal discipline.
We will find out if Nine will outbid Ten in just over a week. If Ten does get the cricket then Nine will probably try to outbid Seven for the Tennis to give them some summer sport.
@bill
I don’t think it will be shown in HD at all
@JB
Ten probably had Rugby Union, F1 or MotoGP
Yes I agree with tvf. It would be good to be able to watch live AFL games on the Internet, for people who don’t have foxtel.
Last time Channel 7 showed soccer it was a world cup qualifying match in Oceania. They put ads in at corners and missed the first goal. After that they showed the matches on delay so they could fit more ads in.
Soccer does not work on commercial FTA. There is up to 50 minutes of play in a half with no scheduled breaks for ads.
Cricket to TEN is good as long as Ian Healy does not go across, he needs to move on, he still thinks he is an Australian player and not a comentator, so biased. And the All Stars Game to 7, hopefully it will stil be shown on Fox Sports, as that is where we prefer to watch football/soccer
Fantastic news: Nine losing cricket rights. Exactly what the fans deserve.
Devastating news: Seven showing soccer. I’m sure they’ll come up with a genius way to insert commercials during the 45 minute non-stop halves.
Did 7 confirm if they were going to show the Man United match live in Melbourne? It clashes with AFL coverage
Good get by Seven, hopefully they rate well and leads to better fta coverage of the A-League. Odd with Seven though since they have AFL Saturday night. Ten should have gone for it.
If ten does get the rights to all the cricket, combined with Adam Bolands new project and the winter olympics I believe it will be the start of a new much more successful era for them.
Am I reading that right, channel 7 is going to show a sports event in HD?
So when ch9 secured its financial future a few months ago and one of its execs was bragging to the media that ch9 was back with no debts and a free hand to do what it wanted……turns out to be a load of typical exec BS after all…..non-existant credibility
I wouldn’t mind if the total cricket rights went to ten. I would be nice to have a change and see how they could refresh the broadcast because it needs it.
Will the soccer matches be shown live?
It would be nice if the commercial networks and the ABC developed an app for windows devices to be able to watch content. The only one currently available is SBS on demand.