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Seven in hunt for AFL, Australian Open -but not “ridiculous sports deals.”

"We haven’t done all the hard work in this business to blow our brains out by doing ridiculous sports deals," says Seven boss.

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Seven plans to bid aggressively for AFL, following reports Paramount was in the hunt for rights, as well as the Australian Open, but Seven West Media chief executive James Warburton said the network will not entertain ridiculous sports deals.

Referring to a rebuild of the network’s bottom line, the Sydney Morning Herald reports Warburton said, “We haven’t done all the hard work in this business to blow our brains out by doing ridiculous sports deals.

“If Paramount paid what Foxtel were paying they would need three million subscribers paying them $15 a month for the 10 months or nine months of the season just to break even.”

He also told The Australian Seven would approach the looming battle for the broadcast rights to the Australian Open tennis with caution.

“We’ll definitely have a look at that. But Ash Barty’s retirement took a lot of the oxygen out of those rights.”

This week Seven West Media forecast its EBITDA to increase from $335m to $340m, including $10m from Prime -up from its previous predictions of between $315m and $325m.

“The recent acquisition of Prime Media Group, coupled with the winning performance of the Seven broadcast television business and the strong growth of 7plus, make SWM the undisputed leader in the national total television market – a position that we plan to build on in the future,” Warburton said.

“When you pull it all together, it becomes a very powerful platform.”

8 Responses

  2. Interesting that he uses the subscriber example to explain the costs for the AFL. Perhaps P+ might be struggling to attract local subscribers (who knows), but their results this week said they have 40m globally. Surely enough of them are paying so that any type of global deal is easily paid for.

  4. Since 7became the sole FTA AFL broadcaster in early 2012, their coverage has been absolutely dreadful with lack of innovations and their coverage has been a disaster. The commentary team didn’t get any better with Hamish calling the AFL. Sadly, I cannot stand Hamish & BT. BT gets facts wrong and doesn’t have any clue whatsoever, while Hamish is boring and lacks insight in commentary. Fans want to have a different channel (9 or 10) so that they want to try and revitalise the telecast with different innovations. (When 9 and 10 both had the AFL from 2002-06, they refreshed the coverage with new graphics and new statistical analysis. But since 9 lost the AFL in late 2006, the AFL coverage fell off a cliff with 7 getting the rights in 2007. However, the AFL doesn’t want to change the FTA Telecaster. Sadly, we had to suffer through 7 AFL coverage for many years to come.

    1. When sports rights change hands the bulk of people responsible for producing the coverage for the incumbent move with them. Sure upper management usually changes but all the people who put the coverage together largely stay with the code. When 7 and Fox won the Big Bash off Ten, half of Ten’s people went to Fox and the other half to 7. Same thing will happen with AFL if it moves.

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