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FOX Sports nabs A-League, Socceroos rights.

FOX Sports to broadcast all A-League, Socceroos, Matildas matches for the next six years.

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FOX Sports and News Corp have secured a $346 million broadcast rights deal with Football Federation Australia.

The deal ensures broadcasting all A-League, Socceroos, Matildas, W-League and FFA Cup games over the next six years.

It excludes rights to the final round of Socceroos World Cup qualifying matches, the Asian Cup, Asian Champions League.

“Today’s announcement sees Fox Sports remain the home of football in Australia. We have been there from the beginning, and have walked the hard yards, and we will be there to see Australian football reach its full potential. For us it’s a celebration,” FOX Sports CEO Patrick Delany said.

“We will serve up more football, across more platforms, live, ad break free during play and in high definition. The way it should. Today’s deal sees FOX Sports home to every major Australian football code until 2020. That’s your team, every round live, no compromises.”

“Since the transformation of our game began back in 2003, the change in football has been remarkable,” FFA chairman Steven Lowy said.

“Football has always been the World Game but it is now also entrenched as a mainstream Australian sport, with deep connections to Asia, the fastest-growing region in the world.

“Our game has never seen a deal of this magnitude before. This six-year agreement gives us the certainty to continue to implement our strategy to grow the Hyundai A-League and the Westfield W-League and invest more in grassroots football development and the women’s game.”

However one Saturday night A-League match for Free to Air is yet to be finalised.

SBS will continue to broadcast the A-League on Friday nights this season, as well as the Premier League every match-week and Champions League every match-day.

Source: AdNews, SBS

13 Responses

  1. In context of their recent broadcast deals with AFL and NRL Fox Sports have themselves a good deal. A League requires the media coverage to keep a reasonable fan base growing, it’s fair to say that if A League relied on FTA most of the coverage would be selective or eventually end up as late night highlights, SBS would most likely have to rescue the day, as they did when Channel 9 mucked up the soccer World Cup.

  2. While this is a seriously retrograde step for the A-League, it is disastrous for the W-League. Soccer will now become like basketball – a purely niche market.

  3. With what others have said, I am also not a fan of the A-League being exclusively on Fox Sports. Should have had more games on FTA. It’s a shame that SBS has given up on its Friday night games, moving games back to SBS2.

    If one of the commercial networks do get a Saturday night game, I hope they do the coverage right. Promote the crap out of it. Make us watch it, because Saturday night viewing lately has been boring as crap!

  4. With Fox Sports losing the EPL rights surely the FFA could’ve squeezed a bit more money out of them given it is probably now their marquee football league.

  5. Not really surprised at this! Football has never really got enough support from commercial FTA networks! SBS and ABC were/are OK but no money! Fox Sports controls the draw because they paid more, they probably paid more this time cause they don’t have EPL anymore! The man or organisation which putlayes the most cash wins! The current NBL deal is better 1 game in FTA Sunday arvo rest on Fox and NBL TV app! For me I can get atleast 2 games free 1 on SBS and 1 on app because iv chosen a fav team pass which gives me free ga!es of that team! FFA for ALeague must follow this model. That is the future!

  6. I’ve lost interest in the aleague. Hardly watched any the last two seasons. Its barely on free to air and since sbs lost interest in it last season I lost interest in it to. I can see with this new deal that the coverage is barely gonna change so I expect my interest is barely going to change going forward. My only hope is that with the change to a Saturday night free to air match and considering the Melbourne derby is normally played on a Saturday that the Melbourne Derby gets free to air coverage. My limited interest these days is for the Melbourne derby and some of the finals. So ffa if you want me to put the tv on and watch the aleague then put the Melbourne derby on free to air.

    1. It’s a business decision and would be the best available. A league doesn’t rate on either foxtel or fta (compared to Cricket, AFL and NRL) so they are hardly going to pay big bucks, especially in non ratings periods. The foxtel $$ would be much better than what ever they would get from free to air and a game a week gives the few who don’t want to pay for foxtel one game to watch at week.

      1. The problem is that since the beginning it has been exclusive to Pay TV so it has never been given the chance to grow. It’s about finding a balance just like what the AFL, NRL and other smaller sports have done. Look at the stands during A-League matches the’re almost empty. It’s embarrassing for the sport.
        Sometimes you’ve got to have a little short term pain for a long term gain. A good example of a sport that has found success through FTA recently is the BBL.

    2. I think the NRL and AFL are doing alright and the majority of games are on Pay TV.

      Good result for FFA. It is about playing the long game. FTA isn’t quite all that anymore.

      1. I think to become interested in a sport one game a week on FTA is not enough. If it was enough then the the current deal with SBS would be having more of an impact.
        The AFL has 3/4 games a week on FTA. Plus local teams are on every week giving fans a chance to follow their favourite club.

      2. This year the AFL had 4 games on free to air (some rounds one game delayed) and 5 on Foxtel, and all finals live on free to air. A league has 1 game live on free to air and 4 on Foxtel, grand final on delay (can’t remember how the rest of the finals worked but pretty sure they were either delayed on did not air on f.t.a.). Its not even close.

        Disagree that its a good result for the ffa. The ffa have failed year on year to get their marquee games such as the Melbourne derby on free to air. To get peoples attention you need to have your most popular clashes available to the widest audience and then you can gauge interest. It might be too late anyway cause someone like me who was into the aleague a few years ago has completely lost interest due to poor free to air, poor website, difficulty finding radio coverage. Why bother when I can turn on the tv and the big bash is on and I also…

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