★★★★★ 0/5

Report: Foxtel, Seven pact on AFL streaming.

Two media companies may have found way forward over deadlock on streaming of AFL matches.

10
Leave a comment

Paramount and Nine have not yet been told they are out of the running for next AFL rights, but reports again suggest Seven and Foxtel are the front runners.

But the two media companies have been at loggerheads over key elements of the broadcast rights renewal, including exclusivity and scheduling of matches.

The Age reports Foxtel may have budged over Seven’s insistence that it gets streaming rights for its matches.

Currently, Seven has none, with Kayo and AFL on Demand enjoying Streaming.

But Foxtel is increasingly hopeful of securing a “Super Saturday”, whereby it will broadcast the home-and-away rounds exclusively with no games shown on free-to-air.

This comes despite West Coast Eagles chief executive Trevor Nisbett, Fremantle Dockers coach Justin Longmuir, the Seven West-owned West Australian newspaper and even WA Premier Mark McGowan calling for games involving WA clubs to be shown exclusively on free-to-air.

Foxtel currently broadcasts an average of five and a half games per round, and Seven three and a half games each week.

A decision is expected by the end of the AFL season when outgoing CEO Gillon McLachlan departs.

You can read more here.

  • Tagged with AFL

10 Responses

  1. While we don’t yet know who will be awarded the rights, we kinda knew Foxtel will pull out all stops to retain (they’ve lost the rugby and while their financial performance has improved presumably from the lockdowns, they of course rely on sport); given some games must be on FTA, and given ten remarkably reportedly have said they won’t share (ie want it all for paramount+/ten), that leaves only nine to compete with seven. Nine reportedly wanted Thursday night games but reportedly, the AFL would rather not split between three parties plus I gather weekly Thursday games are problematic to schedule as teams need at least 5/6 days to recover between weekly games. All these means seven is the last one standing….plus they can’t really afford to not have a Winter sport. Seven has on the record said they wanted the streaming rights for their games which it’s seems they will secure. Maybe seven gives up Saturday games but secure all Thursday games which will be more frequent.

  2. If Saturday AFL becomes exclusive to PayTV then something is seriously wrong. That should never happen. AFL should be available to all. It’s our national sport. Don’t do us dirty like you did the cricket and no ODIs on FTA Channel 7. I do hope we get streaming rights on Seven though. That is always frustrating when we get Border Security for the nth millionth time. However changes need to be made from both commentary teams too. They’re bloody awful and BT is the first who needs to go. The absolute bias and screaming match in Sundays game Swans vs Pies, it was made abundantly clear but he has been awful for a long long time. Why Channel 7 persist with him is beyond me. Will be interesting to see what happens but what i don’t want is Paramount+ either. That platform is terrible. Buffers all the damn time.

    1. Ditto about Saturday AFL. Saturday AFL should be shown on FTA. If it puts all Sat games behind a paywall, then it will kill interest in the AFL. Crowd numbers will decline and so for membership numbers. People will have to pay a lot to watch all their games live, which is a pain. Foxtel are wanting to screen a Super Saturday (which has 4 AFL matches in one round). Without Saturday AFL on 7, I think they will probably show some old movies.

  3. Let Foxtel STV and Kayo have all Matches including the Finals and the Grand Final, as well as what Seven chooses for Free To Air and simulcast/show on 7Plus (which I guess will state by state determined) and let the market decide which version they choose to watch.

    If people want to pay to watch on Foxtel/Kayo for ad-free siren to siren (as it is now) then it’s their choice, as long as Seven has games on FTA and always has the Finals and Grand Final (but not exclusively) no foul. Let them compete against each other for viewers, the worst that can happen out of that is the telecasting quality of the Games improves to attract viewers to each. Viewers should be able to choose say for instance if Foxtel show the AFL Grand Final in 4K/8K UltraHD to watch that rather than Seven’s telecast.

    For the Grand Final I’d personally be happy to pay for it as a standalone in 4K/8K UltraHD, as in like a PPV Main Event set-up as long as it’s still on Free To Air.

  4. I have a feeling that 7/fox will retain the rights to the afl. Good for them, but not very good for fans. I am afraid that many WA fans will need to pay to watch all Freo/WCE games on TV. The loss of Sat AFL will hurt 7’s ratings.
    fans want afl back on 10. When 10 previously had afl (2002-11), they had good innovations —5th quarter and callers didnt crack jokes when calling games. Since 2009, 7 has done nothing to change its coverage. They simply don’t have good camera angles and their on look was just boring. The commentary team have gone off the rails and we had to suffer through Hamish and BT and the other callers. BT yells way too much while Hamish continued on his smugness.
    Fans want to have a change in telecaster. But the AFL doesn’t want to change broadcaster. Sadly, we have to suffer through more of 7’s afl for years to come. This goes the same for 9’s NRL coverage.

      1. This was a post-AFL match segment that was previously aired on 10 from 2004-11. This was a segment which shows two hosts talking about games that have played up until then and also discussing some topics that have occured during the week. In this segment, they also showed Saturday specials where they aired outstanding marks, goals or other efforts that had taken place on the day.

  5. Whilst I am sure I don’t fully understand this process I am confused as to why Nine wont go all out to secure this. AFL basically decides who is the no 1 network in Australia.

    1. Nine has spent money on the NRL, Tennis and sport for Stan. All they want is a to expand their presence in the South and cause problems for Seven, who threatened to poach State Of Origin. Foxtel may want Super Saturdays but the AFL and Seven would be stupid to agree to it.

    2. Nine already has a major winter sport in NRL. You imagine it would struggle finding the $$ and the airtime for AFL too. The codes themselves would also prefer to be the dominant code on a network, I don’t think AFL and NRL could coexist on Nine.

Leave a Reply