$2.508b AFL deal with Seven, News Corp, Telstra.
AFL secures the biggest broadcasting rights deal in Australian history, for Seven & FOX Sports.
- Published by David Knox
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Seven, News Corp and Telstra have secured a historic AFL broadcasting rights in a six year deal worth $2.508B.
The AFL‘s deal from 2017-2022 is the largest in Australian broadcasting history and will give Seven Free to Air rights, FOX Sports Pay TV rights, and Telstra the digital rights.
The conference included Mike Fitzpatrick, Gillon McLachlan, Kerry Stokes, Tim Worner, Ryan Stokes and Rupert Murdoch.
Key points of the deal:
- 2017- 2022 deal
- AFL remains in charge of fixture.
- 22 match season
- Season: 1 Friday night, 2 Saturday afternoon, 1 Saturday twilight, 2 Saturday night, 2 Sunday afternoon, 1 Sunday twilight game.
- Free to Air: Seven exclusive: AFL Grand Final exclusive, Brownlow exclusive, plus Live coverage of Friday night, 1 Saturday night, 1 Sunday afternoon. Further 11 games on public holidays / eve. 5 Thursday games.
- Pay TV: FOX Footy: 9 games every week, every game of every round Live. All Finals Live except Grand Final.
- News Corp can sub-license 1 Saturday match to another FTA network.
- Digital: Telstra secures digital rights mobile, AFL app, website.
The dwarfs the 2012-2016 deal of $1.25b negotiated under former CEO Andrew Demetriou.
Kerry Stokes, Chairman of Seven West Media, said: “Seven and the Australian Football League have a long-standing and deep connection. We are delighted to confirm our partnership with the AFL and look forward to working closely with them as we expand our coverage over the coming decade.
“The signing of this agreement forms a key part of our company’s plans for development and underlines our commitment to the future of broadcast television as we build our media presence over the coming decade.”
Tim Worner, CEO of Seven West Media, added: “We are delighted to extend our partnership with the Australian Football League. The AFL is the biggest football code.
“The new agreement for the 2017-2022 seasons make strong business and financial sense for us. It forms a key part of our plans for the future and will be a significant platform for Seven as we build on our leadership in broadcast television and the delivery of audiences, and build new businesses which will drive our future as Australia’s leading integrated media and communications business. The media landscape is changing. Our agreement with the AFL is a cornerstone of our plans to lead that change in Australia.
Foxtel CEO, Richard Freudenstein today said: “This is great news for Foxtel subscribers.
“AFL fans know that Fox Footy provides superlative coverage of their game, with both great match coverage and informative and entertaining magazine shows that cover every aspect of the competition.
“This deal builds on the strong set of rights Fox Footy has today and ensures that the channel will be the only place where you can see every game of every round, including the final series (excluding the Grand Final), live for many years to come.
“If you love AFL you need to be a Foxtel subscriber, and with our recently reduced pricing there’s really no reason not to sign up.
“Under this deal, for the first time, Fox Footy will be able to be broadcast on all devices, which means that if you subscribe to Foxtel Play or use Foxtel Go, you’ll now be able to watch all games on PCs and Macs as well as tablets, phones and games consoles.
“Foxtel is very proud of its association with the AFL and we look forward to providing an even better service to the League and its millions of fans.”
The announcement follows Nine securing the NRL rights to 2022 in a deal worth $925m. NRL negotiations with FOX Sports are continuing.
This post updates.
20 Responses
This new deal is remarkable given there appears no rival bidders in each category of media. Imagine the outcome if Nine or Optus went for the FTA and digital rights respectively and Foxtel had a competitor.
Did I read in the fine print Foxtel will be simulcasting Seven’s games including all of its ads from 2017? Hope I misread it but can someone (David?) confirm this?
There was a report that if Foxtel took 4 of Nine’s NRL games it would include ads. Has not been confirmed.
Yes I found it. Michael Maughan of Nikko Asset Management is quoted in a Dominic White story (’30 seconds of ad magic helps AFL trump NRL’) in The Age (20/8/15) as saying “Advertisements from Seven on games it has rights to will also appear during the same games screened by Foxtel or Telstra”, he said. This will lessen Foxtel’s AFL offering considering that its current great advantage over Seven’s broadcast was its ‘no ads siren to siren’ and HD. The simulcast of ads makes sense for Seven and its advertisers but reduces the value of the Foxtel subscription. Perhaps you could get a confirmation from Seven or Foxtel?
I initially thought that this deal was worse than before but in actual fact it maybe better. If 7 has the exclusivity for the premier games and the Brownlow and maybe can get a piece of the Hall of Fame or All Australian awards nights than its a good despite the inflated price tag. 10 could get Saturday Arvo games from FOXtel because 7 were not making any money on it anyway. Also Thursday Night games are better anyway. Overall yes the price has substantially gone up and their is less overall content on FTA but its the quality that counts. Hopefully for Saturday Night games 7 will get rid of BT we need Anthony Hudson back.
And nobody seems to understand who actually pays for this in the long run. Higher ticket prices, more costly payTV, internet and telephone services, less families able to afford the game, less kids playing the game, community sport fragmentation. But the rich do very well in deed.
I was very surprised that the NRL seemed to have concluded the Nine deal in isolation. Probably seemed like a good deal at the time – problem is they’ve left almost a 3rd of the revenue they’d expect to be negotiated in a vacuum with no other party able to put forward that level of money, but even more importantly, run the live broadcasts.
So very telling that Rupert personally attended the press conference to take swipes at the NRL. He must have been absolutely fuming at the Nine outcome and will now likely live to 120 fuelled purely by hate.
I do questions Stokes willingness to partner with Newscorp recently (Presto, AFL) as they’d be wise to be wary with the Ten merger hurdles close to clearance.
Against all odds, Nine is the victor here as are the AFL players.
I think you really have to ask the question…Can TEN in its current state survive another 5-6 years with no premium sport (International Cricket, NRL or AFL). Live sport is critical in getting eyeballs to see promotions for other shows. TEN desperately needed at least one major sport over the next 5 years. Even if TEN pay for for one afternoon AFL game from Foxtel, that is hardly going to cut it!
If ACCC approves 15% stake in Ten then it would be a certainty that Ten would get the Saturday Arvo unless for some strange reason Foxtel says no
2012-2016 TV rights deal is worth $1.25bill, from memory the $780mil was the 2007-2011 deal.
I also hear that Port Adelaide, Adelaide, West Coast and Fremantle will each have three matches exclusively live on Foxtel, with delayed coverage on Seven.
I hope the digital rights deal including streaming on computers. In the current deal, streaming of AFL matches is available for tablets and mobile phones but not computers. That’s inconvenient for overseas fans who want to watch matches not covered by their local broadcasters, on a big screen.
Gee! It really seems Rupert still pulls the strings at News Corp. You could sense at the media conference that a shot was being thrown across the bow of the NRL. More money for the AFL , The AFL being mentioned as “the Premier sport in Australia “, and the comment of “we will talk to the NRL in time.” In relation to the pay tv rights. It seems to me FOX will play hard ball in relation to the “crap content ” it has been left with in the NRL. AFL congrats on a great deal.
He’s growing meaner than Kerry Packer was apparently in his final days. Word has it Kerry put forward a bid for the AFL on his deathbed knowing Nine wouldn’t secure the rights and that it would cost 7 roughly 40% more than they should have paid.
Rupert seems more than happy to pay almost double in this instance and I think it’s very much a message that he could bury the NRL at any time – and if they don’t easily agree to terms for this next deal, he could easily bankroll another Super League.
Can any one tell me if the nrl deal was 5 years or 4 years? I have read different articles saying giving different time periods.
This deal will help out struggling clubs and lift spending restrictions on bigger clubs, it will also the introduction of women’s football.
2018-2022. So 5 years. Nine paid $925mill for a Thu night, Fri night, Sat night, and Sun 4pm game. Still 4 games to sell, fair chance to pay TV and a streaming option to be confirmed.
So we are gonna have more of BT and Darcy in the SNF commentary?
Tipping BT’s TV career will go the same way as his radio (i.e. backwards)
Don’t mind Darce, professional and “likeable!”
Not Telstra again. Need to see the fine print but assuming there is a size limit on the devices you can subscribe through telstra. So for instance you can subscribe on a ipad but their isn’t an option to watch on a similar sized windows device. So more devices need support. Also the windows phone app is just plain awful. Let’s hope Telstra fix that if we’re stuck with them. It’s shame their doesn’t appear to be an option to just subscribe to the afl for any screen size. Its basically foxtel or nothing. I think they missed an opportunity to like other sports to give an option to just pay for afl. I was hoping this deal would include five live free to air games a week but if foxtel sells the sat avo game it will come close. Let’s hope they sell it to 10 cause we don’t need more 7 commentary. This deal has a sameness about it. More money but nothing much has really changed yet…
In an Age article I read it says:
“Telstra will pay about $300 million of the record deal over the six years, and broadcast AFL matches over its planned Telstra TV service and to handsets and digital devices.”
So it will be viewable on any TV size via that Roku box, which I’m guessing may extend to the T-Box seeing Telstra have said they will continue to support those with them, I wouldn’t hold my breath on the others though (as they’ll be pushing this hard on Roku/Telstra TV).
I like the way last week Telstra, when outbid by Nine for streaming rights to the NRL, said they wouldn’t pay over the odds for sport and didn’t need sport for Telstra TV to be successful.
This week they boats about paying a record amount for the digital rights to the AFL.
The AFL is worth more than the NRL. The games go for longer and allow for a long halftime show and lots of ads, and they have a 30s ad break after every goal. The AFL also has more fanatic fans in it home states and a larger following in NSW and Qld than the NRL does in Southern States.