AFL announces 4.5billion, 7 year media deal (2025-2031 inclusive)

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NoobPie

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Previous 6 year deal was $418 mill per annum for the lot, whereas this is $473 mill for each of the two extended years, for just the Fox/Telstra component.
Seems a pretty good deal (in context of a variety of current day concerns).
Is that effectively pushing the value of the total broadcast money to $600+ mill for those final two years?

ps sorry, just re-read it, so already includes the Seven money


Yeah certainly not that much! ......but still a significant increase on the average per year of the existing pre-revised deal even though still within the climate of COVID.
 
AFL extends broadcast rights deal with Foxtel, Telstra
The AFL has reached a new agreement with long-time broadcast partners Foxtel and Telstra until the end of 2024

THE AFL has announced it has reached a new agreement with broadcast partners Foxtel and Telstra which will see both extend their coverage rights by two years across the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
......
AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan said the new extended broadcast deal, along with the Seven Network's extension for the 2023-2024 seasons announced earlier this year, would deliver $946 million to the AFL industry over the two years.
.....

So given back on page 23 a couple of us worked out 7 paid cash and advertising contras worth approx $335m for 2023-24, guess would be Telstra have increased their $50m/year x 6 years to at least $55m a year for 2 years that takes it to $445m so Foxtel/News Corp are paying $500m for 2 years.

$250m/year of cash and contras compares to their $1,168m cash + $140m = $1,308m over 6 years average of $218m/year. Given year 6 of the deal was probably worth about $240m, $250m is a 4% increase which is in line with the CPI type increase 7 paid over their old amount for 2022 for 2023 and 2024.

Foxtel were reported to have saved $30m/year over the 3 seasons 2020-22 when they re-negotiated the deal on the eve of the season restart as per the 11 June article in The Age reported at page 23 of this thread.
 

NoobPie

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So given back on page 23 a couple of us worked out 7 paid cash and advertising contras worth approx $335m for 2023-24, guess would be Telstra have increased their $50m/year x 6 years to at least $55m a year for 2 years that takes it to $445m so Foxtel/News Corp are paying $500m for 2 years.

$250m/year of cash and contras compares to their $1,168m cash + $140m = $1,308m over 6 years average of $218m/year. Given year 6 of the deal was probably worth about $240m, $250m is a 4% increase which is in line with the CPI type increase 7 paid over their old amount for 2022 for 2023 and 2024.

Foxtel were reported to have saved $30m/year over the 3 seasons 2020-22 when they re-negotiated the deal on the eve of the season restart as per the 11 June article in The Age reported at page 23 of this thread.


Even if it is a "CPI type" increase (where "CPI" in this instance is more than double actual forecast CPI for the next few years), the AFL has essentially extracted an increase in the 2 extension years on the back of only copping a 13% hit to the remaining three years of the existing contract when the media companies were holding every sport over the barrel.

Meanwhile the NRL has been locked in by foxtel at $200M a year, apparently including telephony streaming, until 2027 in addition to copping a 25% knock to the remaining years of its TV deal

It is hard to describe this as anything but a stunningly good outcome for the AFL.

Weren't the TV rights meant to be going backwards?
 

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ptrg

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The article says there won't be ads on foxtel streams and Kayo when showing Ch7 games.

This is massive news, as it means for many like me, bye bye foxtel box.

But does that mean it's from next season, or only 2023? The Age article didn't have details.
 

NoobPie

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The article says there won't be ads on foxtel streams and Kayo when showing Ch7 games.

This is massive news, as it means for many like me, bye bye foxtel box.

But does that mean it's from next season, or only 2023? The Age article didn't have details.

I suspect it means from 2023
 

NoobPie

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"There will no longer be ads during play on Foxtel and Kayo when taking the Channel Seven feed"

- to me that reads like it is immediate.

Could be. Wouldn't throw my keys in to a statement in an article on a non rights holding media companies article though
 

NoobPie

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Who cares what the bogan BS artist thinks about?

I'm not sure it's a case of caring what he thinks so much as exposing how ridiculous he is.

In 2023, it seems likely that the AFL will be almost $200M a year ahead of the NRL in TV rights given 9 aren't likely to pay above $100M for the NRL rights (given they apparently balked at less than that previously).
 
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Meanwhile the NRL has been locked in by foxtel at $200M a year, apparently including telephony streaming, until 2027 in addition to copping a 25% knock to the remaining years of its TV deal

It was reported that it did not include mobile streaming rights and that these were being left for inclusion for a FTA (possibly 9Now) deal:


Even so, I reckon we will be at least $100m each year ahead of them in 2023-24 when these and NZ rights are added in.
 
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NoobPie

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It was reported that it did not include mobile streaming rights and that these were being left for inclusion for a FTA (possibly 9Now) deal:


Even so, I reckon we will be at least $100m each year ahead of them in 2023-24 when these and NZ rights are added in.


Yeah but I am not sure what that actual means as that article also notes that

The Foxtel extension, said by sources to be worth about $1 billion, allows subscription service Kayo to stream all eight matches.

So presumably the same applies for the (at least) 5 games a week that foxtel have bought - i.e. the $200M a year includes simulcast rights to the FTA games AND the implicit telephony rights for the 5 exclusive games.

So the NRL still has "on the table" streaming rights to the (at most) 3 games which are non exclusive but can't be streamed on telephony (unless you have kayo or foxtel go)


I think NZ rights are $20M a year. I'd say it is 50-50 for it to get within $150M of the AFL in those years. But its the three years after that that foxtel deal could really hurt


Edit: Retract that. I think it is actually highly unlikely that the NRL gets withing $150M in those years. Basically would need the Ch 9 plus NZ rights to exceed the $167M per year 7 are paying. Really can't see that happening. NRL has the SoO but it also has increasingly poor capital city ratings during the season and their finals are basically the same as AFL thursday / Friday night games


9 were offering "90 to 100 million" earlier in the year for a long term extension....

 
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Bjo187

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Lol give him credit he has the media on side big time i would have thought people would see through the b.s by now off the back of the afl's comparative results this year.
 

NoobPie

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Lol give him credit he has the media on side big time i would have thought people would see through the b.s by now off the back of the afl's comparative results this year.

I suspect it's more a case of the media, specifically the two media companies that own the NRL rights, exploiting the NRL s week position during Covid and vlandys cartoonish egotism.

I'm sure the AFL were happy to wait until Christmas eve eve to sign their $150m more a year extension and are probably laughing at a mock up "time man of the year" article of vlandys as news ltd Patsy in chief!
 
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I don't have a news ltd subscription but the headline and first paragraph is enough. This was probably cooked up to stop him losing his shyt publically over the AFLs Foxtel Telstra deal !



Paul Kent: How Peter V’landys and the NRL led Australia out of our COVID crisis

When rugby league needed a leader Peter V’landys stood tall, PAUL KENT details how one man rescued the game, and a nation.

It takes a special kind of irony that, already in the most unusual of years, the Man of the Year is an old undersized second-rower from Wollongong who used to hang from his clothesline as a kid in the hope it might help him grow taller.

As moves go, it was about the only wrong one he ever made.
While Peter V’landys will never be known as Too-Tall Jones, that said, nobody threw as large a shadow over Australia’s sporting landscape in this COVID year like the ARL Commission chairman.
All five-foot-nine of him.
“I look shorter because I’ve got short legs,” he once said. “Most people are 51 per cent legs and 49 per cent upper body, but I’m the opposite.”
In hindsight, it might have turned out altogether different if he had hung from the clothesline by the legs.
Still, to understand V’Landys’ impact on Australian sport is to understand there was a time, for a brief moment, that the very survival of Australian sport, as we knew it, was at stake.


No sport was being played and most of the big sports feared going broke. Australia’s various football codes were at the mercy of the television broadcasters, already haemorrhaging themselves and in small mood for charity.

It was already accepted there would be no income from crowds, minimal income from sponsors, and when Collingwood boss Eddie McGuire dared ask Magpies members to stand by the club and forego refunds on their memberships, he got slammed.

McGuire was a victim of the panic and bad timing that underwrote the confusion not only in Australian sport at the time, but the country. There was no blueprint for surviving COVID.

Jobs were being lost. Who had time to worry about a footy club?

When broadcasters Channel 9 and Fox Sports stopped their quarterly payments, the NRL was in deep financial trouble. An abandoned season would be catastrophic because the code still had debts.

The AFL, in what was seen as prudent management at the time, ensured its long-term survival by securing a $600 million line of credit from the ANZ and NAB banks.


The NRL, without the collateral of a Marvel Stadium like the AFL, was in a far more precarious position. Every week without a competition was costing the game $13 million.

Then along came V’Landys, the man for a crisis.

Never convinced the NRL should have suspended its competition in the first place, almost immediately he set about getting the game running, and financial, again.

Almost immediately it drew frothing criticism from the hysterics, questioning how the NRL could dare resume its competition in apparent disregard to the health risk to the community.

But V’Landys, always a numbers man, had the advantage of logic and common sense.

He tracked the infection rates himself — which went from 22.27 per cent the day the NRL shut down to just 5.94 per cent a week later — and on the back of that began plotting a resumption to the season.

As for the attacks, which grew increasing hysterical, V’Landys stood up to them the same way he always stood up to bullies, like undersized second-rowers always did. With determined resistance.

On April 1, with the curve flattening, a phrase we hope never to have to write again, he announced Project Apollo, headed by a sceptical ARL Commissioner Wayne Pearce.

Pearce had also kept up with the news, primarily NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s criticisms that the NRL was pushing to return before gaining government permission.

So the attacks continued, the critics encouraged by the Premier’s quotes.


The AFL attack dogs mocked him, calling him “Push Ahead Pete”. Somebody rattled Jeff Kennett’s bitter cage and venom spat out. The AFL was used to leading Australia’s sporting tide and yet here was V’Landys, already a pain in their backside for taking on Melbourne’s racing carnival, catching them flat-footed.

What few knew was that V’Landys was already two steps ahead and had reason to be bullish.

What even the Premier did not know was that by the time Project Apollo met, V’Landys had supplied Pearce with a letter from NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller giving the NRL permission to resume under certain conditions, chiefly no crowds and teams based in NSW.

“As at 8 April 2020,” Fuller wrote, “the NSW Health Minister’s Directions relating to COVID-19 does not preclude the NRL from commencing a competition in the terms outlined above.”

Days earlier, Berejiklian had appointed Fuller the State Emergency Operations Controller and, while responding to the pointed questions at her press conferences, was unaware of her Commissioner’s approval.

Headed by Pearce, Project Apollo began plotting the NRL’s biosecurity protocols ahead of a return to competition.

V’Landys gave Apollo a May 28 deadline. It looked tremendously early, but once the reality of it set in, that the competition really looked like resuming, the AFL scurried to set up its own resumption while, elsewhere, the country grew encouraged by the NRL’s determination and also began slowly moving again.


Soon, we began to see a way to work through the COVID crisis.

Problems remained, though. At the same time, the NRL had to get the Warriors out of New Zealand and into Australia. The broadcast deal needed to be renegotiated. A revised season decided.

Again, on cue, the reaction bordered on hysterical.

So much so, Prime Minister Scott Morrison read the tea leaves and criticised the NRL for assuming the Warriors would be allowed entry into Australia, a decision dependent on a national cabinet meeting still to be held.

Few knew Morrison was making the same mistake as Berejiklian. He did not know that for weeks V’Landys was dealing with Foreign Minister Peter Dutton to allow the Warriors into the country. Warriors chief executive Cameron George was a former racing steward at Tamworth, where the local member was Racing Minister Kevin Anderson, who had agreed to provide the Warriors a quarantine bubble.

V’Landys was walking all the corridors of power. Rugby league has not had a leader like this since Ken Arthurson could pick up the phone to Bob Hawke in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, V’Landys began renegotiating the broadcast deal with Nine and Fox Sports, condensing months of negotiations into weeks.

Momentum for May 28 picked up, and with it the mood around the country began to shift from the early days of pessimism and worry to a genuine hope the NRL might actually pull it off and, with it, bring some normality back to our isolated lives.


Sport was leading the way for the country and V’Landys was leading the sport.

Then it almost fell apart. Project Apollo broke from a meeting and Pearce called V’Landys, telling him they had pushed the resumption back to mid-June.

This was the critical moment. Coaches Trent Robinson and Wayne Bennett, on Apollo, urged the delay so teams would have more time to prepare.

V’Landys understood their worry but he also understood the NRL’s return was bigger than a week spent running 400s, that the country was watching and the NRL’s bid to return to normality would be a metaphor for us all.

“No,” V’Landys told Pearce. “It’s May 28.”

He then called each member at Project Apollo and told them it was May 28, no argument, and that is what happened.

In less than two months, he had pulled it off.

He not only got a game back running again, but in it found something greater, finding a way when nobody was sure of anything anymore. He brought back hope.
 
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“And then the sport resumed. The first sport in the world and many people who never watched the game tuned in for the first time. They watched 10 mins and turned off “
“WTF is this stupid boring sport?” they yelled.
“As the season went on TV viewership fell away”.
Then the AFL resumed and TV ratings went up and up as the season went on”
 
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Foxtel has extended its AFL broadcast rights until the end of the 2024 season, which will consolidate its Kayo streaming arm as the key digital platform for the nation’s biggest sport.
The new deal effectively prevents streaming players such as Stan Sport and Amazon from making a play on the AFL for another five years.

Both Foxtel and Telstra announced a two-year extension agreement on Wednesday, some six months after the AFL struck a similar agreement with the Kerry Stokes-controlled Seven West Media.

At the time, the AFL also gave Foxtel and Seven a discount of around 20 per cent on their existing three-year broadcast deals as the coronavirus crisis wreaked havoc on the 2020 football season.

While Foxtel is now paying more for its share of the rights, the new deal heightens the importance of the fast-growing Kayo service, which emerges with a better set of streaming rights than the previous deal that saw Telstra have the lion’s share of live streaming.

Kayo is a critical part of Foxtel’s growth strategy, which now has the crucial winter football codes — the highest ratings sports in the country by far — sewn up for another four years for the AFL and seven years for rugby league.

 

NoobPie

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Interesting that there's nothing in there about an extended deal at a reduced price.


Nor did it mention that anything he "achieved" was at the expense of the games future and integrity, where pretty much all of the cost cutting has apparently taken place.

Channel 9 fairfax have also awarded him man of the year....as well as a general Michael Phelps like cleaning up of half the "awards" 😂🤣🤣


"The most unusual season of all will be remembered for many things – chiefly ARLC chairman Peter V’landys’ efforts to ensure it was completed ....


THE WINNERS

.... Peter V’landys: Everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. Underscored his reputation as Australia’s top sporting administrator by getting the game back on while the rest of the sporting world was still reeling from the coronavirus outbreak. Even his harshest critics must now grudgingly acknowledge he was ahead of the game.....


THE BIG CONTROVERSY

.... Going back to one referee. The whistleblowers were so incensed by the decision to go from two refs to one that their spat with the NRL almost resulted in strike and legal action. As ever, V’landys mediated a truce at the last minute and the game has never looked better....


MAN OF THE YEAR

..... There was a period in 2020 when horse racing and the NRL were the only sports still operating. The common denominator in both was Peter V’landys. Despite intense criticism, he got the game of "rugba league" back onto the paddock before just about every other major sporting code in the world....


QUOTE OF THE YEAR
“While they’re [AFL fans] in Brisbane, it’s like people going to an ABBA concert when they’re AC\DC fans; they’ll like the rhythm for a while but they’ll go back to the real heavy stuff, the rugby league,” said Peter V’landys."
 
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That is a genuine ass kissing piece isn't it? From what I can work out, he renegotiated their entire TV package at the worst possible time. He gambled on there being a depression and everyone having no money, and he was wrong. To his credit, he did get the NRL back a couple of weeks earlier, but it resulted in a pretty big drop in ratings so I don't think you can call that an overall win.

In saying all of that, I live in a city where rugby league has roughly the same profile as breakdancing and underwater hockey, so perhaps i've overlooked many of his big achievements.
 

NoobPie

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That is a genuine ass kissing piece isn't it? From what I can work out, he renegotiated their entire TV package at the worst possible time. He gambled on there being a depression and everyone having no money, and he was wrong. To his credit, he did get the NRL back a couple of weeks earlier, but it resulted in a pretty big drop in ratings so I don't think you can call that an overall win.

In saying all of that, I live in a city where rugby league has roughly the same profile as breakdancing and underwater hockey, so perhaps i've overlooked many of his big achievements.


I think Bjo187 at #643 probably nailed it as succinctly as possible
 

magic_johnson!

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That is a genuine ass kissing piece isn't it? From what I can work out, he renegotiated their entire TV package at the worst possible time. He gambled on there being a depression and everyone having no money, and he was wrong. To his credit, he did get the NRL back a couple of weeks earlier, but it resulted in a pretty big drop in ratings so I don't think you can call that an overall win.

In saying all of that, I live in a city where rugby league has roughly the same profile as breakdancing and underwater hockey, so perhaps i've overlooked many of his big achievements.
To be fair, I'm not sure if he had many other options but to renegotiate at that time, as it may have been the only real way they could gain any sort of financial security to allow them to confidentially move forward and restart (besides using an overseas loan).
 

NoobPie

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To be fair, I'm not sure if he had many other options but to renegotiate at that time, as it may have been the only real way they could gain any sort of financial security to allow them to confidentially move forward and restart (besides using an overseas loan).

There is no doubt the NRL had a weak hand going in to it and that is why they are so worse off with their renegotiated deal. It is not clear whether they needed to sign on with foxtel on such weak terms for most of the decade but we really can't know given we are not privy to all the information

That said, what he is most lauded for apparently is bulldozing his way to getting the NRL back on in late May. In the process, in addition to being bent over by the broadcasters he:
-forced the CEO out at the broadcasters behest
-apparently agreed to destroy the NRL's digital media business
-apparently promised the clubs MORE money rather than haircuts...the same clubs that rolled commission a few years back to distribute the contingency fund to them
-apparently assured the players, who from memory only copped a 20% loss of salary all up, that they would not cop a salary reduction in future years (though he appears to be reneging on that)
-volunteered that the clubs could get involved with the whole scale cost cutting at HQ

So, notwithstanding the weak starting position, it is still the case that he essentially got through by placating any interest group that could give him grief and sacrificing the "good of the game" things like integrity and development that don't have any short term powerful interests to push back
 
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