ABC firms for free-to-air soccer rights

No official bids for free-to-air A-League rights came before the Easter deadline.
No official bids for free-to-air A-League rights came before the Easter deadline. Getty Images
by
John Stensholt
Max Mason
Football Federation Australia has failed to entice the three commercial free-to-air television networks into bidding for A-League and Socceroos matches, leaving the ABC in the box seat to gain the rights.

Seven West Media, Nine Entertainment, Network Ten and current FTA rights holder SBS are understood to have not lodged an official bid with the FFA by last Thursday's deadline, having baulked at some FFA requirements such as having to pay Fox Sports $2 million in annual production costs.

It is understood and FFA and ABC are in discussions.

Sources have told The Australian Financial Review that there had been "multiple bids" for rights, but that could mean Telstra has also lodged a bid for streaming rights.

The Financial Review revealed tender documents had been recently sent to the market and though FFA and its advisers Adana Partners held discussions with Seven, Nine and Ten, no official bids eventuated.

The big three broadcasters are understood to have tried to broker a deal with the FFA but not for the price or terms the body wanted.

The ABC therefore has emerged as a leading contender to secure the rights, which begin later this year.

The FFA and the national broadcaster declined to comment.

The news comes as the A-League enters its final series this weekend in the last year of what is a $160 million four-year deal with Fox Sports and SBS.

Deal unlikely

The relationship between the FFA and SBS has become fractured over the last four years and the prospect of renewing the deal has always been unlikely.

Before the 2015-16 A-League season, it looked as though SBS might sell the free-to-air rights to Nine, Seven or Ten, but a deal never materialised.

The A-League, which had been moved to SBS's main channel during the second year of the deal, was moved back to SBS2 for the 2015-16 season.

"It's been reasonably well documented that FFA and SBS have explored alternatives," FFA chief executive David Gallop said at the time.

Fox Sports has already signed a record $346 million broadcast deal, but the FFA had hoped to strike a free-to-air deal by May.

In the event the FFA, ABC, or any other free-to-air broadcaster can't work out a deal, the rights revert to Fox Sports for an extra $2 million to $4 million per year.

Fox Sports could still later on-sell the rights to another broadcaster, sources said Ten is in the mix, as it currently does with Nine and Socceroos matches.

Foxtel, which is 50-50 owned by News Corporation and Telstra, owns 14.9 per cent of Ten. Fox Sports is fully owned by News Corp.

Focus on cricket

The proposed free-to-air deal is said to be worth about $2 million to the FFA, but will also require an additional $2 million to be paid by the free-to-air rights holder to Fox Sports for production.

The deal is expected to have one Saturday evening A-League match, to be simulcast with Fox Sports, some Socceroos 2022 World Cup qualifiers and friendlies, Matildas, W-League, club friendly matches and an expansion clause, allowing for new teams to enter the A-League. It may also include exhibition matches played in Australia featuring international teams.

While Nine, Ten and Seven are all understood to have mulled bids, the challenge for the commercial networks was the A-League match was not exclusive, did not have catch-up or replay rights and there are questions over which matches are included.

Nine and Ten will also have their focus on broadcast rights for cricket, of which the negotiations are expected to pick up over the coming months.

Nine is keen to get its hands on the Big Bash League, which Ten holds, and the price is expected to balloon from the $20 million per year under the current deal to as much as $60 million per year.

It also wants to keep the rights to international Test matches and limited overs games which it currently holds.

http://www.afr.com/business/media-and-marketing/tv/abc-firms-for-freetoair-soccer-rights-20170419-gvnv3y

Why would they?

The FTA can just buy it off Foxtel

@select

However, FIFA's visit has not been a welcome one as the FFA and Gallop attempted, unsuccessfully, to have the meeting postponed under the belief it would impact television rights negotiations.

"The importance of getting this negotiation process right and ensuring we secure the best deal for the sport cannot be overstated… The environment in which we conduct our broadcast marketing and negotiations needs to be optimal,” Gallop said in his letter to FIFA.

"What is also critical to appreciate about our governance model is that the A-League clubs in Australia are not ‘clubs’ in the more traditional European or South American sense. They are all privately owned … and as such are ‘for-profit’ entities whose objective … is to act in the interests of their shareholders (and in doing so build the sales value of their asset) and not act in the interests of the game of football in Australia as a whole."

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2016/09/26/clubs-dont-act-games-interests-says-gallop

$2 million a year.  well that's a fair bit less than what has been said about the FTA value.

I want to have my cake and eat it too.

"Gallop confirmed that if a free-to-air deal did not eventuate, then the fifth game would revert to Fox Sports, which will fork out extra money.

The Australian understands the figure is around $3m and that, theoretically, Fox could sell that game to networks for significantly less than the $10m to $15m FFA would like to get for it."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/football/soccers-new-broadcast-deal-a-quantum-leap-says-steven-lowy/news-story/3edd6e47ec64dc70c88cfe3aa08a8562

Better for FFA to not sell to ABC and let them sell it.

I don't seethe problem here. Does anyone really want 9 or 7 to get the rights? SBS have done their dash. That leaves abc, who would do a fine job. They'd have to overbid the $3m. If they don't fox onsells to 10 and Ffa still pocket the $3m plus bag fta main channel (apparently part of the $3m guarantee). I love how even the respected afr manages to find the negative in an already known situation....

Gallop yelled from the rooftops that he increased the value of the pay rights.

Let's hear him also tell all and sundry he took the FTA rights from 7.6 million to 0

What a muppet

Shocking if true, No wonder SKY TV pays fk all.

Pretty bad they can't sell the derbies. WSW & MC are new teams for this tv deal.

This keeps getting better and better. Well done FFA, a round of applause.

Thank god Dave locked in his job negotiated such a good media deal for 6 years

Good to see Gallop completely failing at what he was hired to do.

Nobody interested in the league tells you something right Dave?

sounds about right

In hindsight perhaps FFA should have chosen a city based FTA offer.

6 years.


(I still think we are a chance for ch 10 via Foxtel)

When do you ever?, always on the FFAs ballsack.

How incompetent are the FFA to close bidding last week without being certain that at least one bid would be reviewed. Total cock up by the suits.

There's two comparable codes for football to contrast itself to on FTA - Rugby which is shown only on delay and Super Netball which is on a secondary digital channel. The hope that football can appear on one of the main commercial networks channels seems to have been misplaced, the FFA have clearly not done their homework here.

ABC would however be a good outcome if the deals right - a presence on ABC if integrated to their news, radio and internet and social media platforms would provide nationwide reach. It's not as good as a commmercial FTA fully backing the code and promoting it but clearly that's not going to happen, the best football can hope for is a presence on a secindary digital channel there.

So the FFA have to forget the money, they've blown it, and work with the ABC on creating a show that regularly pulls in several hundred thousand viewers and maybe in 6 years time commercial FTAs may be interested.

Digital streaming and international rights are all that's left now, but seeing as the ffa have ballsed everything else up there's little hope their either.

This lol

I agree. Best case scenario if relationship with sbs can't be patched up. If the rights went to 10 later on then they are the best of a bad bunch and it would satisfy all those who need and expect to see kfc ads during the football.
I agree with all others too that this does seem like somewhat of a fail since this is not what was set out to be achieved.
Hooray!

Fucking hell.

Better to have it on big mainstream channel for pittance and get the fucking exposure then to have it locked away on ABC/SBS ffs.

JUST FUCK.

-PB

Yeah, im calling it now.

If Gallop and co stay in charge, or league wont survive 6 more years. Killing the game (literally)

@ paulbagzFC

"Better to have it on big mainstream channel for pittance and get the fucking exposure then to have it locked away on ABC/SBS ffs"

I think the one thing that is obvious now is that we have no chance of being on mainstream FTA, even if we gave it away. The best we hope for is a secondary commercial FTA.

ABC1 on Saturday night would be perfect exposure. But are the FFA capable of pulling that deal off?

What is currently on ABC on a Saturday night? Would a Saturday game out rate this? Another thing I am wondering is a main channel on ABC is better than a second channel on commercial TV? I guess we just need to consider what will garner the best exposure for the game. I personally think we don't have enough exposure in the mainstream media to compete with the more popular codes. The only way this can be done is through bigger name players and coaches but it seems all 10 teams are looking to consolidate there position rather than push the envelope. It is interesting I was listening to an MLS guy over the radio saying the new teams were doing bigger and better things forcing the established teams to act. Food for thought considering the FFA are scared of the financial impact of expansion.

This is going to create further discontent between the clubs and FFA. Club owners and member feds going to be screaming even louder for an independent HAL now. 

On a side note though - ABC would be great for a second division :P

I'm not even mad - we all knew this was going to be the outcome.

Embarrassing for Gallop, Lowy and O'Rourke..

Apparently O'Rourke was brought in specifically for this TV deal negotiations. What is it $50m per season with Fox and a FTA deal with the ABC? Would that be classed as a success or failure?

The apps on it's way though...

The dollar 'increase' in rights barely covers inflation - unmitigated disaster imo