I can't wait for yesterday's figures.

Better get the tissues handy.

“Going off memberships this is stronger than it has ever been...”

Yep. Pet memberships have given us a real boost. So have no-game and 2-game memberships.

We’re stronger than we’ve ever been !!!

😀

Interesting debate/slanging match.
Personally I have no idea whats going on.
My view on the league is probably skewed downwardly because ,I live in a city at the moment where a lot of sporting teams like Roar,Reds,Lions ,Heat are shite.
Hence my personal experience is people aren't following HAL,like they used to.
How all this equates with record memberships makes little sense compared to a massive drop off in viewing.Membership numbers could have been cooked for years ,but even if they are not real now.They never were and we still had much higher ratings.
FTA figures are at their lowest ever and so are pay tv .
The drop off doesnt reflect memberships.
It also doesnt reflect W-League figures,which seem to be the same ,i presume.
Something is going on ,which isnt accounted for and streaming may be the missing factor.Just thinking about it logically.

One other thing to consider for Kayo is subscription numbers.
As NRL and AFL havent started yet,you would think subscriptions before Xmas would skew towards Football fans.
Fox revenue comes from advertising and subscription.What the split is ,i dont know.But if roughly the same number of people subscribe to Foxsports/Kayo in total this year compared to previous years,then a drop off in viewers is not as critical.

Why? Are you assuming they will already be bad?

Fuck you're bitter. At least you can sleep tonight saying 'iz betta dan da EN ESS ELLE'

Have a look at season 3 compared to season 4. In season 4 the lowest crowds for teams was higher than season 3 which suggests stronger / growing loyalty for core fans. But the highest crowds were lower because of diminished casual interest (tickets were bumped up $5 that season as well as other issues). The result of season 4 was not only lower attendances across the board, but then season 5, and finally season 6


As for TV ratings, yes they are inaccurate and yes they are shit. But they are the only mechanism the industry has and its the one advertisers swear by. If we want any of that advertising revenue and TV dollars then we need to play the same game as the others. We need to understand the ratings system and learn how to control it. When the FFA criticised SBS for the ratings of their own product, and then stormed to commercial networks thinking being on the same bandwidth of popular shows would make them popular too, it just goes to show how misinformed they are to how ratings actually work. And when their decision was guided by people involved in negotiations for other successful sports, it just goes to show how much it was a case of riding on the coat tails of a popular product instead of any particular talent or understanding of TV negotiations

Meh, I was an NSL fan and I look forward to some of the stronger clubs coming back in. It's just that I recognise that the football and professionalism is better now than it has ever been, I believe in building on that, not tearing it down.

So do I. Thats why I am critical of what the FFA are doing

Doesn't look like any of the two matches last night made the rankings. Whip out the tissues!

Streaming is the big issue, and poses a number of questions that will take time to answer.

Firstly, even if Kayo numbers are not made public, surely this doesn't mean they could keep them from the FFA during broadcast and streaming rights negotiations, it would seem to be a pertinent fact, and likely to be made a condition of the negotiation?

Secondly, how does streaming rights get valued, when its for a multi sport platform like Kayo?  If they have 200 000 subscribers at $25 a month, thats $5 mill a month in subscription fees, but they show 30 sports.  How do they value each sport, and determine what the appropriate price is.  Surely a big part is just the degree of competition for the rights?  However, another part will be using streaming numbers for each sport to gauge how valuable it is as part of the whole package, but even that doesn't tell you how many subscribers you lose, if you lose the sport.  A sport with a committed fan base, but little broad appeal compared to a sport with not much of a committed base, but reasonable casual viewer numbers, might be more valuable.  You are more likely to lose the committed fan from the platform if you lose the sport they are into, but a casual fan is more likely to stay, for other sports.

Kayo also runs ads, again, this ties into streaming numbers pretty directly. The more stream the sport, the more views per ad, the more valuable the stream as compared to sports barely watched.

I cannot help think that streaming is a two edged sword for sports, and sports that handle it badly will suffer a lot.  Some sports will be put in a position where it doesn't matter how they handle it, they will lose, where for others, it will be a god send. It certainly isnt the guaranteed new age dawn for sports some are claiming, and even if the drop in FTA is due to streaming, I suspect this may be a bad thing in the long run.

A break down of how streaming can work for a sport can run like this.

Free self streaming.  This can be a godsend for marginal sports unable to get any mainstream attention. Pros, you can give a niche sport access to a wide market.  You can have social media spread the message for you.  Fans can link friends in to streams, post highlights etc. Lets you turn various local leagues into a community by sharing videos.   Cons, Apart from social media you are generally locked in to current fans.  Most potential casual fans probably do not even hear about it.  Doesn't make much if any in the way of money, and comes with costs.  Difficult for amateur sports to do well.  Think Australian Lacrosse as an example, widespread sport with little exposure, runs streams on youtube and facebook.

Commercial Self streaming.  Sport runs its own subscription streaming platform.  Pros, reliable income stream, not relying on negotiations that may not go they way you expect.  Cons, Doesn't tie in as well to viral social media, as its a restricted platform.  its actually hard to make really good money this way, you are competing against, and cannibalising other platforms.  You are really only able to directly market to current committed fans, its not a good way to get new fans.  As you are selling a single product, you are really limited in what you can charge.  NBL as an example charge $5 a month.  This is cheap, but if you have Foxtel, you are not paying this, and few would drop Foxtel, just to stream NBL direct.

Selling Streaming rights to a content provider.  eg Kayo.  Pros.  Gives wider exposure.  People who get Kayo for other sports can also watch your sports, and become fans.  Doesn't expose the sport to people without Kayo, but a good proportion of them either have an alternative way to view sports, or are not into sports in the first place.  Your likely to get better viewer numbers than a dedicated stream.  More visible in general than single sport streams. Cons, Negotiations can be difficult, and hard to value.  The organisation you are dealing with deals with lots of sports, and may not value you as highly as you wish.  Difficult to use in social media, because its a restricted platform. Can cannibalise directly into FTA

Multiple platforms.  Widest exposure comes from doing several of the above.  Stream your own, stream on Kayo, and Foxtel now, plus Telstra, plus the FTA streaming channel, but this fragments your viewer base, and possibly makes it less valuable as a whole.  It seems mass viewer numbers still attract a premium from content providers.  They will pay more for that mass appeal sport that brings in 400k viewers than they will for 10 different sports bringing 40K each.  Every time you split your viewer base, you devalue it.

AFL live pass is restrictive in what you can do with it.  It only streams to a small player, or PC.  It is a platform designed for people who want extra content, and a way to access a few games, it isnt meant to replace a foxtel subscription, or FTA.  No one is going to watch AFL live pass if they have access to the game on Fox or FTA.  It isnt worth it to the AFL to fragment that base, even if they are getting money for Live Pass.

So, losing viewers completely is bad, if they are losing FTA viewers to streaming, thats a better outcome, but its far from certain its a good outcome.  Firstly, it significantly devalues the FTA product, still the best platform for casuals, and gaining new fans. Second, it is far from certain the FFA can monetise the streams to the degree it needs to to make up the shortfall. If the next Foxtel deal falls, and FTA isnt interested, what can the FFA do with streaming that makes up the gap?  Dealing with Foxtel limits what the FFA can do with streaming.  If they want to do deals where there are stream in competition with foxtel/Kayo, which Foxtel would ordinarily limit, then they are going to have to accept a haircut from Foxtel.

I also think this is an issue that has hit the A league early and hard, but will hit all sports eventually (by the next rights deal for AFL and NRL).  The days of ever rising FTA deals is over imop.  Just keeping them where they are is going to be tough.

If it were significant, why wouldn't they publish, especially given so much negative press? It could do well to calm investors too.

That just doesn't stack up at all.

@ The select few,
Please don’t tell us when you’re getting your tissues out, just do it in private, and remember, you’ll go blind if you do it too much.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for reaching out, bud. I appreciate your sound scientific advice. You saved two eyes today. You're a hero.

Keep up the good work.

TheSelectFew.

I doubt they will have them week to week.  Its not the sort of info that could be kept secret during negotiations over rights, but the FFA may well not have them outside this.  It is certainly a bad look, and if they could create some calm by releasing good streaming figures, I am sure they would.

A younger audience, and poorer FTA offerings may mean A league is losing a larger share of its FTA audience to streaming than other sports, and having a smaller market to start with, it has a much bigger impact.  

WSW v jets in 2012 had 115k viewers + 101 on FTA
This weekend 31k

Fox Sports nownow consider showing reruns of Gilligan's Island to replace ALeague

So it was confirmed on radio during the week that Foxtel offered to hand back their HAL rights to the FFA

Last weekends Big Blue derby had 31k viewers on the weekend compared to 115k in 2012

Honestly if I was running Fox Sports I'd be showing repeats of Gilligan's Island and having Boza and team analysing coconuts on the island rather than losing so much money and credibility on a product that has broken it's back

confirmed by who? which radio station?

Seems like apt reward for our game if true

The Socceroos bowed out of the Asian Cup without even an inquiry. Full steam ahead for the goal of qualifying for 2022!

The FFA should never have thrown out the Crawford report and replaced it with the AFL / NRL plan from the 80s/90s when things started to go bad after season 6

Nobody ever looked at the fucking AFL / NRL and said thats what we wanted. Not only is the national team on the slide but so are ratings and attendances. Expansion was botched. And the game only seems to be popular among pets

But nothing seems to be drastic enough to change the FFA's single path of copy the AFL / NRL and accept whatever outcome we get as inevitable. Another reform seems likely Will be interesting to see if the national league clubs survive this time

What radio? South Melbourne Community Radio?

Confirmed by soccer stoppage time, one of the newspapers had hinted it as well. I believe the figure offered was around $80 million to get out.

Oh right, soccer stoppage time. The same soccer stoppage time who said southern expansion was a certainty to be the next a-league team. Not denying that it may have happened, but a reliable source hasn't confirmed it.

I'd prefer to wait for a more reliable source as well, but I must admit, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it has occurred.

Was also on the SoccerStoppageShow on 2MM in Sydney

you're saying fox are so desperate they'll actually pay the FFA $80 mill to get out of it?
pretty hard to believe that

As a complete get out it’s worth it for Fox, they have so much summer content now that didn’t exist when the A league started back in 2005, massive produxtion costs to serve 15-30k viewers. Can’t blame them for willing to pay that figure to wash their hands of the product.

I understand that bit, but still, $80 mill is a lot to pay.

Sounds like complete bullshit. Why would they fund new teams, pay for extra production, pay for FFA Cup. 

$80 million is probably more than they would have to pay to break the contract. Or they could just give the rights away to anyone.

You'd imagine the first thing they would do is cut the production costs. I don't think that's happening. 

If this is the case then we really need to do something drastic before the next TV deal. 14 teams is an absolute minimum by then, then onwards towards to pro/rel. 

Every thing Foxtel have done is what they were contractually obliged to do at the point of signing two years ago. They agreed that additional money would be given for expansion, and extra money if these teams came from a big region

However a lot changes in 2 years (aside from the A League). The value of a sport can fluctuate by tens of millions as we saw when in season 5 it was worth $60m a year, but we ended up with $40m

What we do know is Foxtel have said when we get to 12 teams they want 22 rounds. There are already signs of them pulling out. Not only that but they dont even have exclusive rights to the premium content. They are paying $50m a year for rubbish

$80m to pull out is very believable. There are 4 years left worth up to $50m

And during the next TV deal we will be minus SBS, minus 10, minus Foxtel, and would be stupid to go with 7 (cricket has become little ore than summer promotion for the AFL)