Simon Hill article

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/aug/04/football-looks-to-digital-revolution-to-find-missing-link-between-base-and-elite

Please click link in support 

Curious what everyones thoughts are, but would they charge a bit of a fee to everyone who registers in order to get access to the AL and this app?

A $50 increase would open up $100 million a season, less the production costs this could be sustainable, but we the dilemma is we are trying to reduce fees not increase them.

There might be 2 million participants, but the registered numbers (those actually paying rego fees) is closer to 600,000.
So an extra $50 per annum rego brings in $30 million, which is not bad, but then that means you are increasing the cost of regos by 16.6%, for what? To fund professional football clubs owned by rich people?
Yeh, I'm sure that will be well received by everyone.  I doubt the FFA would go down that route.
So then you have to attract subscibers (which is precisely what the media expert was saying).
You can't get anywhere near 600,000; you might get half that number, but 300,000 x $50 gives you $15 million, plus a bit of advertising revenue, but then you're paying for the production costs...anyway, this is the reason why it's better to have someone pay for your product.
Going down the route of doing it all yourself is NOT a road paved with gold - it's what you do when no one else wants to pay for your product.
Here's hoping Optus comes to the party - of course you can do both - and that might end up being the best way to do it.

They won’t increase fees. If anything fees will decrease with covid impacts plus isn’t it in JJ’s 11 plan? So it will mean restructuring the fee split. It’s definitely doable. 

It is. The FFA component is the least worrying but between the zone and State federation there’s a $100+ fee .... there has to be cost savings there. 

The number of registered players last season was 543k.

Its definitely doable if we have the right CEO.
The big paybacks are in sponsors and  others who pay to hook into all those potential customers.
As an example imagine $50 extra a year for all registrants and you get a whole lot of Aussie football content AND for premium subscription you get  extra content And ......Optus,Amazon,Woolworths,Webjet ,QBE and hundreds of other companies .....give you cash discounts of $100 plus each ,for online purchases...easy sell....
All those companies pay FFA  $X   And    give those discounts to access 1 mill plus football community.

The easiest business plan ever.Customers are there and have to pay rego which is set each year.

Hey new business ,Do you want access to a guaranteed 1 million plus  customers?

this quote pretty much sums it up:

Hunter Fujak, a lecturer in sports management at Deakin University, says while the idea of controlling your own content is alluring, it is vital to get the fundamentals of broadcasting right in order to achieve success. “The idea you can just record it, broadcast it, and people will show up is a bit of a mirage,” he says. “Broadcast is an outcome of a sport’s popularity, not a driver. Fundamentally, there has to be a group of people who want to watch your content.”

AL as a product is on the nose, until that is fixed no matter the platform, people wont watch.

You simply cannot argue with that statement. 

$50 per household. 

If family has 3 kids who play and a parent does too they should pay $200?

I read a few months back a study in the US and it outlined in the writers mind the key difference between subscription broadcasting and streaming broadcasting which is essentially the same thing just with a different name.

The key differences where price & quantity...

Subscription broadcasting is dying as the model is expensive and contains much you care little for.

Whereas streaming is cheap with lots of content that you have an interest in... but you can watch as much or little as what you want.

The subscription buyer today can pay between 50 to 120 for the rights but not care about the comedy channel, the kids channel etc... but given they paid so much will watch  a lot of what interests them...

The trick as we all know is numbers... at say $ 2.00 per week or say for easy maths $ 100.00 per years.

One million at $ 100.00 is 100 million, 1.5 million is 150 million...

If the 2 million is in any way realistic at $ 100.00 per year its 200 million... plus you can still sell to other buyers...

The big risk is do we have 200 or 2 million... 

If the product is based on the A league PLUS all lower levels of Australian Football, it is a flawed product and will not be successful.

At the grassroots level, where the majority of the football community exist, there may be some people interested in paying to watch this grassroots football (ie to see your own club, or watch your kids, or watch opponents), however, I don't think this can sustain a membership base that can pay enough to both produce that content and also the A League.

Additionally, the vast majority of the Australian Football community is at the grassroots amateur level and does not care at all about the elite NPL level, and has no interest in paying any money to watch that level of football. I also know many people at the grassroots level who are in fact already upset that the money we use to pay State Federation fees is spent on streaming NPL football.

I just don't think there would be many people at all in the Australian football community who would support a product that is dedicated to streaming all levels of Australian football.

I think whoever is responsible for the broadcast rights would be better to either just stream the A League (and any second division) or otherwise make sure the product is aligned with a broadcaster that has a complimentary offering of some other football product (eg Premier League, Champions League, J and K League).

put it on twitch like NBL

I think best case scenario here is 250k subscribers at $20 a month which is $60m a year

This figure of course is less production costs, dedicated shows, news, staff / panels etc...

Also less advertising but for a pull market would be minimal and if we went for this kind of arrangement there would be a lot of evidence to support those kind of habits for our key audience

But pluses include our own sponsors and advertisers who want to buy space on the streaming platform - assuming they want to pony up a significant cost to advertise towards an audience of 250k

As a Kayo subscriber I wouldnt go for this as the quantity Kayo offers minus football is still better than football in its current state. As said on another thread I'd only subscribe for NPL / W League content if it was proven that some of the revenue went to these areas of the game (so its basically a $240 a year membership to support grass roots)

Barely anyone in grassroots would willingly chip in for this.  (As in a broadcast payment model for the A-league.)  The fees are already a joke and there's wide resentment at how little flows on to the local clubs in general.

A breakdown of my rego fees from the myfootball page shows that just 16% of my total rego goes to my club.  The rest goes up the line.  What a joke.

Asking for another contribution or an added levy to rego will be given the short shrift it deserves.

You are all misreading the tea leaves (one for middy). You don’t need voluntary subscribers when you are siphoning it from regos (which will either stay the same or be reduced anyway)

In an ideal world you would have something like a three-way partnership between FFA TV, Optus and SBS. FFA TV takes care of all production costs, SBS shows a couple of A-League matches a week live (Friday and Saturday nights), and Optus has the streaming rights for all other A-League, W-League, NPL and NSD (should it come fruition) matches.

The key is quantity: a March-November season would be 40 weeks, so a 33-round season + finals + FFA Cup/international breaks. Optus having PL and CL rights would tide subscribers over in the December-February period.

Let's say having domestic football rights allows Optus to increase its subscription fees from $15 to $19 a month, and increases subscribers by 150k (from 850k to 1m). That would be extra revenue of $75m a year.

I'm in your situation. I have Foxtel and if I couldn't watch A-League on Foxtel I would be lost to it. I'm not going to pay extra for Optus or FFA TV purely for soccer when I can get an alternative product already on Foxtel.

In saying that, I did get Foxtel originally because of one product (AFL). My buy-in with AFL is far higher than soccer. I guess they need to work out if what they can pickup in those 1.7m people who only like soccer balances out what they lose in current consumers like myself.

Your example shows how dangerous winter football would be.At least during summer you dont choose between AFL,NRL  and Football.
For summer its Cricket and Football,when AFL and NRL fans get bored of cricket and want Football.
So if you want fans and their money winter Football will not thrive.

You expect $300 registrations to cover the $50 for this?  That is the sort of annual registration fee that the large majority of the 540k players pay and it isn't excessive.  What is excessive is the FFA putting a levy on for a service that the vast majority of the players have little to no interest in.

They need to find out why so many people involved in the game are not interested in the elite arm of club football here and address that, then they will have a market that wants the service.

The best case scenario is signing a deal with Optus, especially considering a shit load of football fans have already subscribed to Optus for EPL, and many other competitions. 

I would just love to know how much they'd offer to have the rights if interested. 

this is stupid Football fees are too high as it is 

Got to look at the base of the pyramid not the top if we want football to grow 

I am actually looking forward to soccer in winter. There is less chance of it clashing with a team I follow. I have issues getting to games in summer due to my own sport (ironically cricket). In winter there is every chance I could see Richmond play at the MCG then go across Swan Street for a soccer match. This just isn't possible with local cricket (or any local sport I guess) as coming in from the suburbs means you'll never make it for a 7pm kick off. Even 8pm is tight.

Summer also means you can't double up of you are a Big Bash fan (I'm not) as a lot clash directly with the soccer.

I have doubled up Boxing Day test into a Victory game before and it was fantastic so I'd really love to do it after the footy too.

My own situation would probably be different from a lot but I put it forward as an alternative view, nothing more.

Interesting research in that article:
7% of Australians (1.75 million) are fans of football and no other code.
66% of football fans are interested in the A-League (the rest only follow overseas leagues).

So there are at least 1.2 million who are interested in the A-League and no other domestic sports. These people should be the priority, then after that the Euro-Snobs, and only then people who support other domestic leagues.

For people who support AFL/NRL and the A-League, the switch to winter might be tough, but the times when we should be bending over backwards to accommodate fans of other codes are over. That was the strategy for 15 years and it hasn't worked. We should focus on the large number of people who are already football fans, and that means putting the best possible product on the park, and that means playing in winter.

As said in my question, how will they fund it? This isnt what has been put forward by the FFA. I do like the idea of them taking more of a cut from the State Feds and dropping the fees.

I think the winter switch is a smart move - and this comes from an AFL-first fan. It just makes sense on so many levels.

I don't agree with targeting the 1.75m fans though. To me, it isn't enough to sustain the code. There will never be 100% penetration. I'm no analyst but with the number of people who are sports fans (any sport) Foxtel that does cater to a lot still has bugger-all penetration.

I don't think AFL/NRL fans have been targeted for 15 years. I couldn't tell you who has been targeted and that may be the issue. I know most sports target kids because it brings in a minimum of two (carer and kid) if you hook the kids. 

“Kayo are offering you a $5 for 2 months of Kayo Basic plan”

I had just done it
Makes you choose an avatar
Only lets you choose an AFL ball or a Rugby ball
Nice

Can I cancel and redo?

yiu can choose a cap davide lol

970 people are watching the 05 ucl on optus now