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

From the Masters article re NFL rights split. Guess the AFL will eventually go the Amazon Prime route.

.... the $US100 billion ($129 billion) 11-year deal signed over the weekend between the major US broadcasters and the NFL shows networks can’t exist without leading sports.

The $US100 billion-plus agreement is a doubling of the value of NFL rights; beginning in 2023 and to be shared across the traditional linear broadcasters of CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and ABC. It will be broadcast on free-to-air TV, pay TV and streaming platforms.

Amazon Prime is the new broadcast entrant, buying the 18-game NFL Thursday Football Package for the first time on its streaming service. This is Amazon’s largest investment globally in sports media rights, spending about $US1 billion per year. While very significant, it represents only 10.5 per cent of the total value of the NFL media rights..........

NFL regular season has 32 teams x 8 home games = 256 games. I knew everyone got 1 bye for a 17 round season, but don't know if the 2 byes is relatively new, or new for this deal to have 18 Thursday night games.

18/256 = 7.03% vs $1bil/season / $9.1bil/season = 11%. A nice premium for the exclusivity.

This deal


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Last deal

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JohnZ

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Damo on Triple M (Monday's Rush Hour) said he'd heard that Thursday night games could be packaged separately as new rights from 2025 onwards. Wonder if we'll see 2 FTA channels and more games on FTA.
 

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JohnZ

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So where does the money come from ?
Ch10, amazon, apple etc. plenty of money


I wonder where they got that idea from....

time for the afl to go all out and sell each game individually. Having a Thursday night and Sunday night (or 2nd Friday) game would help that. Move any overlapping games to Saturday 2pm to maximise views.
 

big_e

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How do they get their money back, who pays? FTA in Aus is struggling, advertising dollars are weak ... its not as if we have an international audience.
From what I understand, Amazon wants events like Thursdays (and Boxing Day English soccer games) because they can then run targeted sales events to Prime members, which get a higher return than just normal advertising. They win a little bit from additional Prime memberships but more so from a greater share of your weekly spending.

Presumably Apple is similar, in the sense it's not about advertising dollars, but direct returns from keeping people on their platform.
 
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From what I understand, Amazon wants events like Thursdays (and Boxing Day English soccer games) because they can then run targeted sales events to Prime members, which get a higher return than just normal advertising. They win a little bit from additional Prime memberships but more so from a greater share of your weekly spending.

Presumably Apple is similar, in the sense it's not about advertising dollars, but direct returns from keeping people on their platform.

Sounds reasonable, but how many Australians watch football that would sign up to either in order to watch games on Thursday nights? That can't be a significant number relative to the size of those companies so I think Kwality's question still stands, where does the money come from? Yes Amazon or Apple might pay, but would they pay a lot?
 
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From what I understand, Amazon wants events like Thursdays (and Boxing Day English soccer games) because they can then run targeted sales events to Prime members, which get a higher return than just normal advertising. They win a little bit from additional Prime memberships but more so from a greater share of your weekly spending.

Presumably Apple is similar, in the sense it's not about advertising dollars, but direct returns from keeping people on their platform.

The problem is we are not the US or Europe.
Not sure what you mean here: it's not about advertising dollars, but direct returns from keeping people on their platform.

Someone pays, who?
 
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magic_johnson!

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Ch10, amazon, apple etc. plenty of money



time for the afl to go all out and sell each game individually. Having a Thursday night and Sunday night (or 2nd Friday) game would help that. Move any overlapping games to Saturday 2pm to maximise views.
This sounds so frustrating for the casual viewer. Ease of watching a game for more casual eyeballs is surely the afl’s priority over money.
 

big_e

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The problem is we are not the US or Europe.
Not sure what you mean here: it's not about advertising dollars, but direct returns from keeping people on their platform.

Someone pays, who?

Sounds reasonable, but how many Australians watch football that would sign up to either in order to watch games on Thursday nights? That can't be a significant number relative to the size of those companies so I think Kwality's question still stands, where does the money come from? Yes Amazon or Apple might pay, but would they pay a lot?
It's a completely different business model.

They don't think about returns on investment for a specific show or series, because it's impossible to calculate. Say someone signs up to Netflix because of The Last Dance, then ends up spending more time watching Friends - which show gets the credit? One show might be the catalyst for signing up, but what gets people to stay is the volume of content.

Research has shown the biggest benefit of original content for streaming services is to differentiate them, so having sport on their services might be the one thing that gets someone to sign for them and not one of their competitors. You'd think part of Stan's reasoning for getting involved in rugby is to head off challenges from Binge and Disney Plus. I saw a chart recently (US-based) that shows most people have a limit of three streaming services - so it's a very competitive market right now.

Specifically for Amazon, in the US, almost 70% of people who get a free trial of Prime sign up for a paid membership. (FWIW, I did the same after getting a trial for The Test.) 93% of members renew for a second year, and 98% of those for a third year. Prime members spend 2.5 more than non-Prime members. That's huge for them, billions and billions of dollars. That's why they wanted just Boxing Day Premier League, so they can promote the s**t out of their sales. Smaller scale here, of course, but you'd think Thursday nights works in a similar way.
 
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Ch10, amazon, apple etc. plenty of money



time for the afl to go all out and sell each game individually. Having a Thursday night and Sunday night (or 2nd Friday) game would help that. Move any overlapping games to Saturday 2pm to maximise views.

What will be interesting if that eventuates is how the scheduling will work - I doubt anyone wants to buy the Friday night game and then have to screen North v Bulldogs. At the moment the AFL can put whatever they want in the premium slots and there's not a lot Channel 7 can do about it other than complain. I suspect if the AFL starts selling timeslots then there's going to be some contractually enforced input from the buyer as to who actually plays in that slot.
 

JohnZ

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What will be interesting if that eventuates is how the scheduling will work - I doubt anyone wants to buy the Friday night game and then have to screen North v Bulldogs. At the moment the AFL can put whatever they want in the premium slots and there's not a lot Channel 7 can do about it other than complain. I suspect if the AFL starts selling timeslots then there's going to be some contractually enforced input from the buyer as to who actually plays in that slot.
Yes you would assume so.

Additionally, if more games were on FTA, it would remove the need for all SA/WA games to be on FTA. Think it's still worthwhile in NSW/QLD to build the game. That gives the broadcasters more games to choose from.
 
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Yes you would assume so.

Additionally, if more games were on FTA, it would remove the need for all SA/WA games to be on FTA. Think it's still worthwhile in NSW/QLD to build the game. That gives the broadcasters more games to choose from.

Fox already arcing up over the local broadcast rules. I dont expect that to be in the next media contract.
 
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It's a completely different business model.

They don't think about returns on investment for a specific show or series, because it's impossible to calculate.

I beg to differ, it is a business model & even though you (or me) cannot calculate data (ROI ?) does not mean they will spend money with no eye to the bottom line for their shareholders.
 
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i think amazon or google would be ok to have a loss leader in australia's case, cross subsidised by overseas market money, in order to get an exclusive rights to something AFL (one night exclusively, all year) to get customers into their other streams of revenue

That would have a payback period (or similar), a business proposition, its a feasible strategy for sure.
 
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