THE head of the Ten Network has promised to give the A-League “the respect it deserves”, after signing a two-year deal to become the competition’s free-to-air home.

From Round One of the new season Ten will simulcast the A-League’s Saturday night fixture as well as the finals and Socceroos friendlies, with Ten CEO Paul Anderson pledging to cross-promote the coverage across the network.

The deal was only finalised in recent days after Football Federation Australia held a tender process with the FTA channels and ABC. Under its terms, Fox Sports will pay FFA $2m a year to assume the FTA rights for the next two seasons and onsell to Ten, who Anderson said would initially give its weekly game “consistent and stable scheduling” on its One sibling channel.

The deal heralds the advent of the A-League onto commercial TV, coming after three years on SBS where viewing figures suffered from a perceived lack of promotion, with the move into a less niche environment seen as essential to building the competition’s brand.

Ten will take Fox Sports’ entire production, including match commentary, with the pay-TV network viewing the move as promotion for its subscription packages. The selected games will also be streamed live on the Ten Play app, as well as Foxtel Go.

Though Anderson said he was open to the possibility of showing games on the main Ten network eventually, he said the priority was building viewer loyalty for the A-League.“We’ve been talking to the FFA for quite some time because we believe the A-League needs to be on free to air, and people need to be able to find it,” said Anderson.

“Football as a participation sport is obviously huge and the A-League is growing.“We want to treat it with the respect it deserves, to promote it and give it scheduling consistency. We want to give it a regular timeslot, and give it the chance to grow. We can promote it through our news bulletins, through programs like The Project — through a range of appropriate shows.“That benefits us, and gives us a chance to use A-League talent in building the competition’s profile.

If you look at any of our properties, when you have good talent it helps us across a range of shows.”Anderson said the key for the competition was in giving it a predictable home, allowing viewers to know where to find it.

“The Women’s Big Bash is a good example of a show that began on One but when its numbers grew it was moved to Ten. But consistency is the key, you can’t chop and change.”FFA CEO David Gallop said the move would give the A-League unprecedented reach.“This new arrangement is an opportunity to showcase the game for the first time on a channel with a history of promoting major sport,” said Gallop.

“It will take our major games, including derbies, into every Australian household for the first time, as well as the finals and certain Socceroos games within our control.“It’s part of our overall deal with Fox Sports and is part of working with them to drive subscription packages so as many people as possible can see the A-League. It’s an important part of the growth of our media value for the future.”Fox Sports CEO Patrick Delany called it “a great result” for the game.

“The arrangement between Fox Sports and Network Ten will ensure more fans than ever before get to watch the best Australian footballers in action every week,” he said.“A prime-time Saturday night A-League match on free-to-air, featuring FOX SPORTS’ expert commentators and world class production, will help grow the game and build football for long-term success.”

This is good. 

2 years good.

Finals live

#gallop4lyfe
#4moreyears

Hope they go for Hill and not Speed. 

Very good. Cross-promo, ONE (with a chance to move up to 10) and taking Fox's full coverage. Good good good.

Expecting 200-250k for smaller games and 350-500k for derbies. No excuses now.

What does this mean? It will only be streamed on the 10 app and not on any of their network channels????

Read the whole article. It's on One PLUS TenPlay digital.

@ Soil

It says it will be on a secondary channel AND streamed.

The best we can hope for is that the clubs receive more sponsorship money. 

As long has FFA controls the money the clubs wont get anything extra out of this. 

Well I will guarantee you both the Melbourne and Sydney derbies will eventually get on 10. The games are too big not to. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

There is a side debate to this issue- 

Should all clubs receive and equal share of tv moeny?

Almost every match for the last 3 seasons almost every Saturday prime slot has featured SFC, MV or WSW, with SFC and MV having most. Should they receive more or less tv money?

They will receive more sponsorship revenue because of it. They may suffer at the gate but I wouldnt imagine it would be by much and in fact it may help boost their numbers. Teams like CCM, NJ, PG will feature very little and WP probabaly not at all. Should they therefor receive more?

@ RBB

I agree. Although there's two games on Saturday night and it will be interesting to see which one TEN get, the early or late one. Fox won't let more than one derby a season go to FTA though. Still a good result for everyone though.

nice!
money is small but opportunity is great!

embarassing that the ffa couldnt onsell the saturday night game and have to resort to offloading through the back door via foxtel. nonetheless, it is the outcome most of us wanted. ten will probably be losing the big bash to channel 9, they have no afl or nrl commitments, one hd is already better than sbs viceland.

Ok....So who didn't have access to SBS?

We want to give it a regular timeslot, and give it the chance to grow. We can promote it through our news bulletins, through programs like The Project — through a range of appropriate shows.“That benefits us, and gives us a chance to use A-League talent in building the competition’s profile. 

13	THE PROJECT 7PM	Network Ten	603,000	147,000	194,000	116,000	65,000	81,000
14	HOT SEAT	Nine	589,000	207,000	195,000	144,000	42,000	0
15	HOUSE RULES – WED	Seven Network	585,000	0	298,000	0	108,000	179,000
16	TEN EYEWITNESS NEWS FIRST AT FIVE	Network Ten	519,000	142,000	142,000	99,000	55,000	81,000

http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2017/06/wednesday-31-may-2017.html

You cant argue having it on 7 9 or 10 (or their stations) doesnt legitimise it for many Australian viewers. 

mate just fuck off, you know exactly why more people watch 10/One over SBS. It's not rocket science. Spare us the contrarian crap.

I have no problem with all the clubs sharing tv money equally even if some of them wont be seen on FTA. They are all in the A-league. 

Matt Simon, Ross Aloisi and Kenny Lowe on "Masterchef A-League Celebs"?

Brilliant

Love only for two years then expect an uplift

Good

Me, TV doesn't get the signal to SBS.

Best games on FTA with decent promotion, this is what we wanted. No more bitching about coverage. Time to shine.

The good thing is that if this goes as hoped and viewer numbers are high, then it's only two years until renegotiation.

What is Ones viewing like though? Disappointed its not for the main channel

Great news.

Ten is perfect fit.

Shit money but foot in the door.

Ratings to be spiking to 300k hopefully over 2 years or were cooked.

O'Rouke mentioned a 2nd FTA game would most likely occur with a 2 team expansion. The length of this deal may coincide with that, although I hope not. 

Strange.... not a single mention of this on the SBS World game site...big news... you would think it would have a banner headline ?

Ok on free to air ....time for some more Del Piero's  

so they couldnt sell it.  and foxtel got it.  fail.  gallop and lowy need to go. they have cost the game a fortune over the next 6 years.

cant complain about the broadcasting of it though.  but the extra money they were banging on about when they shit sold the whole thing to foxtel was complete bullshit.

Sorry Wadie the journey is starting to speed up

@ Bundoora Brah.

Well said. No fancy press conference. No ffa press release. Not even a story on the official A league web site.

Lowy/Gallop have messed this up right royally and need to go.

But the outcome, on TEN, as you say is a good one. No complaints on that.

Lets see if some of the channel 10 reporters respect the game now ... unlike some of their past efforts.