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

[Teen Wolf]

They can't currently watch online for free, calculon559 is saying.

I would suggest the number of people in SA/WA/NSW/QLD subscribing to Kayo so they can stream their own AFL team's games--and nothing else--is tiny, if not non-existent.

 

[MelbourneGWS]

Wonder how many non-Vic* AFL fans will cancel Kayo and watch the footy on 7+ come 2025, considering all their local team's games are on free-to-air.
*excl. NT and Tas, who get the same games on f2a as Vic.

My understanding is not all local team games are live when they are on free-to-air.

 

[calculon559]

Aren't they already like this anyway?

um they can do this now?

They can watch on 7, but not on 7+; Foxtel currently has exclusive streaming/digital rights, 7 will get those for games it broadcasts as part of the new deal.

My understanding is not all local team games are live when they are on free-to-air.

This is definitely true for SA & WA, and I believe the next deal there will be more games on delay.

At the same time, Fox will get their own commentators.

That'll be the big draw I reckon, along with Super Saturday for us Vics.

So I can see 7 losing viewers for games they show nationally (similar to 9 with NRL, where Fox sometimes have more than 9)

Not sure how the NRL deal works, but the only nationally broadcast AFL games are Thursday and Friday night*. What games are shown on Saturday and Sunday depend on what state you're watching from.
*Except when there's two Friday Night games :/

 

[MelbourneGWS]

They can watch on 7, but not on 7+; Foxtel currently has exclusive streaming/digital rights, 7 will get those for games it broadcasts as part of the new deal.

This is definitely true for SA & WA, and I believe the next deal there will be more games on delay.

I can’t speak for Queensland, but under the current media deal all GWS Giants and Sydney Swans games are broadcast live on free-to-air channel 7 or 7 mate in Sydney and ACT. Under the new 2025 deal however, some Saturday afternoon games of the Giants (and presumably Swans) will be on delay like in SA/WA.

 

[calculon559]

I can’t speak for Queensland, but under the current media deal all GWS Giants and Sydney Swans games are broadcast live on free-to-air channel 7 or 7 mate in Sydney and ACT. Under the new 2025 deal however, some Saturday afternoon games of the Giants (and presumably Swans) will be on delay like in SA/WA.

That sucks. Any idea what the criteria is for what matches get delayed? All that the AFL's big announcement from last year said was:

• Outside Victoria, the match involving the local team will be broadcast live into the local market on the Seven Network and 7+ digital except for selected matches on holdbacks.

Hopefully it's limited to a small number of games played locally, at least then they could justify it as incentive to go down to the match.

 

[MelbourneGWS]

That sucks. Any idea what the criteria is for what matches get delayed? All that the AFL's big announcement from last year said was:

• Outside Victoria, the match involving the local team will be broadcast live into the local market on the Seven Network and 7+ digital except for selected matches on holdbacks.

Hopefully it's limited to a small number of games played locally, at least then they could justify it as incentive to go down to the match.

Yes, from 2025 it’s 3 matches on delayed “holdback” telecast for Sydney and ACT, and they are only the games scheduled for Saturday afternoon. All the other games will be live free to air as under the current media deal.

 

[new0066]

That sucks. Any idea what the criteria is for what matches get delayed? All that the AFL's big announcement from last year said was:

• Outside Victoria, the match involving the local team will be broadcast live into the local market on the Seven Network and 7+ digital except for selected matches on holdbacks.

Hopefully it's limited to a small number of games played locally, at least then they could justify it as incentive to go down to the match.

WA & SA both have 3 delayed games per team, That will stay the same with the deal from 2025. NSW & QLD will now also have 3 delayed games per team with the new deal.

From what I remember and gather in the new deal

FOX will Super Saturday R1- R15 where there will be no Saturday night game on 7 except marquee games (deam time, ANZAC Eve/Day etc).

- In R1-8 FOX will have EXCLUSIVE games, that is where the NSW, QLD, WA & SA teams will have their delayed 3 games per team. So 7 will air local games on Saturday but will be delayed. So I expect any Saturday games involving NSW, SA, QLD & WA team in the first 8 rounds to be in the afternoon​

- In R9-15 there will still be no 7 produced games on Saturday BUT in NSW, QLD, WA & SA there will be live games involving local teams on Saturday.​

So all the delayed games will most likely fall on Saturday afternoon in the first 8 rounds.


From AFL website "Foxtel and Kayo will exclusively broadcast a 'Super Saturday' of games in each of the first eight rounds of the season (except Anzac Day Eve, Anzac Day and Dreamtime at the 'G if they fall on Saturday)"

 

[calculon559]

Yeah, the whole Super Saturday thing was not very clear from the initial announcement, even in terms of the Victoria arrangements
Fox gets Saturday exclusively for the first eight rounds, but no Saturday night games on 7 until the last eight rounds?
Does that mean the middle eight rounds with have live Saturday Arvo football on fta in Victoria?

 

[new0066]

Yeah, the whole Super Saturday thing was not very clear from the initial announcement, even in terms of the Victoria arrangements
Fox gets Saturday exclusively for the first eight rounds, but no Saturday night games on 7 until the last eight rounds?
Does that mean the middle eight rounds with have live Saturday Arvo football on fta in Victoria?

The middle 8 rounds (R9-15) will still be a super Saturday for Fox except for the fact that there will be LIVE local games in WA, SA, NSW & QLD

For VIC: Saturday is FOX EXCLUSIVE in R1-15 except for Marquee matches, this is because there are Thursday night matches in the first 15 rounds, When that ends, R16-24 will have Saturday night matches on 7 (produced by 7) in VIC.

 

[calculon559]

For VIC: Saturday is FOX EXCLUSIVE except for Marquee matches in R1-15 this is because there are Thursday night matches, When that ends, R16-24 will have Saturday night matches produced by 7 in VIC.

I'm not disputing 7 gets Thursday night for the first 15 rounds, I'm saying that doesn't mean Fox get exclusive Saturdays for 15 rounds. Otherwise, why not just say that?

The AFL, Fox Sports, & Ch9 reported the Super Saturday being the first eight rounds; only Ch7 reported 15 rounds. An assumption on 7's part?

 

[new0066]

I'm not disputing 7 gets Thursday night for the first 15 rounds, I'm saying that doesn't mean Fox get exclusive Saturdays for 15 rounds. Otherwise, why not just say that?

The AFL, Fox Sports, & Ch9 reported the Super Saturday being the first eight rounds; only Ch7 reported 15 rounds. An assumption on 7's part?

All the details of the AFL's new broadcast rights deal

• Channel Seven will broadcast Thursday night, Friday night and Sunday afternoon games, marquee matches, the Brownlow Medal, all AFL finals and the AFL Grand Final on free-to-air television.
• The first 15 rounds of the home and away season will feature Thursday night matches on Seven.
• Saturday night matches in the last eight rounds will also be on Seven.

• Foxtel and Kayo will broadcast every AFL and AFLW match and every AFL and AFLW final except the Grand Final.
• Foxtel and Kayo will broadcast every game with their own commentary lineup.
• Foxtel and Kayo will broadcast all AFL events, including the AFL draft and awards nights, but not the Brownlow Medal.
• Foxtel and Kayo will have a ‘Super Saturday’ in the first eight rounds of each AFL season, broadcasting exclusively live every game on that day, with the exception of Anzac Eve, Anzac Day and Dreamtime.
• Outside of Victoria, the match involving the local team will be broadcast live into the local market by Seven, except for selected matches on holdbacks.

What I gather from this SEN dot points:

R1-8:

• 7 will produce & broadcast Thursday Night, Friday Night & Sunday Afternoon
• Fox will broadcast every game with Saturday being EXCLUSIVE LIVE (EXCEPT Marquee matches) with non-vic getting delayed games on 7

R9-15:

• 7 will produce & broadcast Thursday Night, Friday Night & Sunday Afternoon
• Fox will broadcast every game with Saturday being EXCLUSIVE FOR VIC (EXCEPT Marquee matches) with non-vic getting LIVE games on 7

R16-24:

• 7 will produce & broadcast Friday Night, Saturday Night & Sunday Afternoon
• Fox will still broadcast every game BUT have NO Exclusive games (except for the usual Vic v Vic they sometimes get)

 

[new0066]

Fox get exclusive Saturdays for 15 rounds. Otherwise, why not just say that?

because it is kind of complicated, so they just said EXCLUSIVELY LIVE in first 8 rounds

instead, they should have said :
Fox gets Super Saturday Exclusive in R1-15, where in R1-8 there will be delayed games in non-vic markets on 7 and in R9-15 there will be live games in non-vic markets on 7

 

[MelbourneGWS]

Sydney and ACT fans have been fortunate in that (at least from 2012 when we entered AFL), all GWS Giants and Sydney Swans home and away games have been live on free-to-air tv in either the primary or secondary tv channel. From 2025 this changes, but even then just 3 games on Saturday will be shown on delay free-to-air.

 

[Bjo187]

because it is kind of complicated, so they just said EXCLUSIVELY LIVE in first 8 rounds

instead, they should have said :
Fox gets Super Saturday Exclusive in R1-15, where in R1-8 there will be some delayed games in non-vic markets on 7 and in R9-15 there will be live games in non-vic markets on 7

A one word edit makes it perfect.

 

[new0066]

A one word edit makes it perfect.

no all games on Saturday will be delayed in non-vic, that's why its Super Saturday EXCLUSIVELY LIVE on FOX in R1-8

so that means, in the R1-8, non-vic teams will be getting max 3 Saturday games not will most likely be day games.

I'm going to assume the AFL will fixture it so, there will be 1 Saturday Night game in R1-8 and it will be 2 VIC teams.

 

[MelbourneGWS]

no all games on Saturday will be delayed in non-vic, that's why its Super Saturday EXCLUSIVELY LIVE on FOX in R1-8

so that means, in the R1-8, non-vic teams will be getting max 3 Saturday games.

In the R1-8, for Non-Vic teams it will be max 3 Saturday games on delay?

 

[new0066]

In the R1-8, for Non-Vic teams it will be max 3 Saturday games on delay?

it says FOX EXCLUSIVELY LIVE, which means all non-vic games on Saturday will be delayed. Each team has 3 delayed games each.

so e.g, in R1-8 I don't think Swans would have 4 Saturday games because they can only have 3 delayed matches for the season

 

[MelbourneGWS]

it says FOX EXCLUSIVELY LIVE, which means all non-vic games on Saturday will be delayed. Each team has 3 delayed games each.

so e.g, in R1-8 I don't think Swans would have 4 Saturday games because they can only have 3 delayed matches for the season

Thanks for the clarification

 

[From The Pocket]

In the R1-8, for Non-Vic teams it will be max 3 Saturday games on delay?

I think it's on average 3 but 12 over both NSW/QLD (SA/WA have a separate 12) so there's a bit of flexibility in scheduling for the AFL.

 

[deck]

You also had 5 different state versions of Fox Footy Channel stations,

My sister had one of the dodgy satellite setups back in those days. You could watch all games live by using the different state versions of Fox Footy. I think from memory Friday night was the only game you couldn't get live.

 

[JohnZ]

New CBA has 3 x 5 day breaks per club. That's enough to see regular Thursday night games (24 nights, 48 "slots" averages 2.67 Thursday nights per club)

If a team plays Thursday or Friday week before it won't use up a 5 day break so some teams could play 4-6 in a season if they can stack them (near) back to back. Also gives some more flexibility going Sunday --> Friday too.

 

[Freomaniac]

Yep 7 have been really poor at promoting the game in the northern states and adding atmosphere to the telecast. Plus they don't even have a football show. I hope a number of points were stipulated in the new contract, they should be promoting and helping to grow the game, not purchasing the rights and shoving it off to secondary channels without promotion. Channel 10 was the best for the game back in the early 2000s.

Agreed

 

[Freomaniac]

You also had 5 different state versions of Fox Footy Channel stations, so that the games weren't live against the gate and FTA games weren't live against the gate, except for 7 in Sydney, which had been the case for 20 years, and then 10 asked for lots of Brisbane games on Saturday night to develop the SE Qld market and Brisbane got a lot of their home games live against the gate.

I was living in Sydney for the first season, then SE Qld in 2003-04 then back to Sydney and IIRC, 9 showed the early 1.10pm EST Sunday game so that it wouldn't clash with their Rugby League live game between 4pm-6pm. I reckon late at night we got a replay of the 9 produced Sunday, and I seem to remember the first half was basically a highlights package for about 10-15 minutes then the full second half of the game. I assume the southern states had a very different set up for the Sunday game.

I'm gonna assume channel 504 is the AFL channel in all states

 

[JohnZ]

I was living in Sydney for the first season, then SE Qld in 2003-04 then back to Sydney and IIRC, 9 showed the early 1.10pm EST Sunday game so that it wouldn't clash with their Rugby League live game between 4pm-6pm. I reckon late at night we got a replay of the 9 produced Sunday, and I seem to remember the first half was basically a highlights package for about 10-15 minutes then the full second half of the game. I assume the southern states had a very different set up for the Sunday game.

In VIC we got the 1pm game live (which usually came from interstate, a lot of which were in Adelaide) and then the 2pm game on delay and condensed to run 4-6pm (this game was generally in Melbourne so there was incentive to not be live against the gate). Tony Jones would anchor the coverage of the 2pm game from the studio.