it was claimed on one of the football fan pages over the weekend that fox sports won't pick up the last round of WCQ's. if this the beginning of the end of football on foxtel? 

Until they have full financial control,they cant invest more money or look at expansion or a new financial model.
FFA still lingers.
What happens to media revenue now?
What happens to licence fees?
Can the HAL financial model be changed?
Revenue for finals?
Stadium hire controls?
What other issues are yet to be resolved?
While FFA have their grubby hands in the till ,the owners are hamstrung.As far as i am aware the finacial cut of all future reveunes has not been set.Just FFA wont be worse off.Whatever that means.

Controlling operations means little except FFA have been cut out of causing more problems!

Thanks FFA for sustainability and fishing mantra.Lol

Can a supposedly major sports service really ignore Football and be a sports programmer?
I am sure there will be a lot of propaganda to talk down media rights deals.Bit would FOXSports really want to give a competitor like Optus a possible leg up?Or would they want to experience the ire of the football community?
Imagine if the New HAL management pump  a lot of money into a reboot.
All fun and games.

Half page front page ads for Fox's BBL coverage today. Fox have a clearly made the decision to back BBL and lose the A League.

There won't be another Fox deal,folks. Absolutely not. 

This is doubly difficult because the ratings are important to the A League but no longer to fox. Focus won't now lift a finger to back the A League. They are in the corner winding down the clock. 

The clubs had better start planning for life without Fox. 

With the poor ratings, don't be surprised if Fox start winding back HAL coverage in general and only do bare minimum (ie matchday coverage with 1 commentator) to reduce costs further.

To be honest, genuinely surprised it hasn't happened yet.

Everyone had, they won’t survive much longer. 

HAL doesn’t NEED a f’kin broadcast partner - the same way Disney doesn’t need a broadcast partner. 

250,000 people paying $15/month will give them exactly the same revenue as they get today from the FFA ($45m).  

The loss of Fox and replaced by our own broadcast partner will:

- allow us to start/stop the season when we want 
- allow is to break for international windows
- allow us to kick off when the fuck we like 
- allow us to expand in markets where we choose. 
- accelerate Div 2
- accelerate W league expansion 
- bring forward pro/rel
- create revenue streams for NPL clubs if they’re included 
- the independent stream could be carried data free on Telstra or Optus or Amazon or Stan 

the good news for football is theres more upside than downside in leaving Fox, only the FFA suits couldn’t see that. 

As long as you can be sure 250k people would pay $15 a month. The more and more popular streaming becomes, its very easy for the younger crowd to stream everything for free. I ask a lot of people if they have optus for the EPL, but many just watch the games for free online at various sites. The way crowds and and ratings are going, you would be lucky to get anywhere near 250k. Also dont foxtel pay the production costs for each match? That would no longer be paid for. 

Totally agree. I’ve never been convinced Gallop and Co fully understood the market changes that were taking place

Cricket. AFL and NRL will do okay despite an ageing customer base but smaller niche sports like football need to really get ahead of this curve 

You seriously reckon there’s 250,000 people willing to pay for HAL ?

What are you basing that on? Cos it sure ain’t any historical data

Please feel free to present any historical streaming data you’ve used to come to that conclusion 

Um —- you’re the one making the assertion that we can get 250k paying customers. 

Oh, sorry  ——- I get it. You’re one of those “I bet there are secretly 200,000 people streaming HAL every game” ——without a skerrick of data to back that up. 

Good strategy 
😃

The truth is, none of us really know how many would be willing to pay for just the A-League, and how much they would pay.

200,000 paying $100 per annum gets you $20 million per season (production costs would have to come out of that).
250,000 paying $150 per annum gets you  $37.5 million per season (less than what we were getting the TV deal before the current one).

If Optus (or another carrier) wanted to pay $40+ mill, and cover full production, you end up being better off with a partner than doing it yourself (although you'd have to weigh up any advertising revenue you'd be making if you control all broadcasting).

We just don't know one way or the other, we're not privy to enough info, but at first glance, going it yourself looks like a very hard road (maybe it's worth the initial pain for long term gain).

Exactly. 

We don’t know. But on any view, 250k is just pie in the sky stuff

Well if there there are 200k secretly streaming the  HAL, they would continue to secretly stream rather than paying for it. 

I could be wrong but I don't think foxsports will be completely throwing away the a-league next rights deal. I do see them splitting the deal with either another streamer (optus) or fta channel.

There will be 6 games per round by then and foxsports could pay for three and cut their expenses to around 30 mill a season.

That way they hold on to all the a-l subscribers they've built up over the decade and a half by owning half the games of all the teams.

I would certainly keep my kayo subscription if 6 Victory games a season were on that platform. I would also pay for optus streaming if the other 6 were on that as well.

With full control of the HAL,the owners will have to look at a different business model for long term success.In the short term that may put less emphasis on relying on selling match subscriptions.
Look at the new Sydney team,Macarthur,for example.They paid $20million for a licence and as far as i am aware they don't receive any of the current media rights deal.
How will they make their money?
Crowd revenue will go to their bottom line, as they have an  almost rent free stadium and presumably food and drinks profit.
Advertising  will add more.
Merchandising will earn money.
Sponsorship will also .

Who knows how all the numbers add up.But certainly some people think that they can make money in the HAL.

Almost no chance Fox just drops the A league imop.  What they are willing to pay, and what the A league is willing to accept may be so far apart that a deal doesn't get done, but they aren't just walking away.  They would still want it for a price that works for them. 

Don't know about that, I think we will see what FOX are willing to pay when the ARU TV deal gets done next month. If ARU get $60m or more I just don't see any meat left on the bone for HAL. But If Optus bids for ARU then that will leave more money to spend for FOX on HAL.

However the way I see it is HAL will become the next NBL in 3 years time but will be shown on Optus for maybe $30m a year.

So you have no numbers. 

Next please. 

It’s not exactly a hard road, it’s a road well travelled - just not in Australia. 

The hard part is of course getting customers - that means getting prices right and getting content right. It also means getting the season length right as you can’t make enough money on 6 months. 

But its no stretch to imagine the HAL with 8 games a weekend played out over 35 weeks plus finals. Possibly teaming up with another code (basketball would be an obvious bed fellow) or even an overseas league like the lower English leagues 

the problem is Australia is locked in to an FTA mentality supplemented by STV. Streaming redefines the business model ... it’s perfect for football (not just the HAL, but all of football), we just need people with smarts and not locked in to the Aussie media cartel. 

That is the argument of a fraud.  You are making an assertion, its on you to provide the numbers.  People who do not believe you have made a case for your argument do not need to offer anything.  In a trial, the defence only needs to provide a defence in the face of evidence produced by the prosecutor, if the prosecutor doesn't produce enough evidence to convict, the case is throw out immediately, and no defence is required.

Your the prosecutor is this situation, and your case has been thrown out for lack of evidence, no counter argument is required.

Macarthur didn't pay $20m.  They paid an initial $2m with 4 annual payments totalling $10m.

In what world are the ARU getting more than a-league. They rate similar, the a-league would get superior numbers on kayo and the a-l has 11 aus teams next deal, rugby has 4. The aus teams are the ones who drive subscriptions...

That’s gold, the guy making up numbers to create a fantasy business case, demanding numbers to prove him wrong. You couldn’t make this shit up. 

What a total and utter tosser you must be in real life.  

There’s a decent article on the RA negotiations here:

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/11735352

looks to be about $30m on offer from Optus plus RA get (or got) a cut of SA and NZs tv deal plus decent coin from the UK. 

I am sure your 250,000 imaginary iHAL subscribing mates think you are top bloke, but I the real world your delusional posts are a joke

"Do they take cash in the hand like perhaps Optus [which is] offering $30 million a year for the rights, and accept that will give them a very limited market?" he said.

"Or, do they do what's best for the sport in the long term, and have it out there on a free-to-air network, even if they get less money for it."

Being on Optus does not mean the end of FTA or being in a limited market. Your actually growing the market by adding the content are you not?. Anyway next months Rugby TV deal will show us one way or another where the HAL will sit amongst the Aus sports land scape. 

Should we stay on FOXTEL?

You actually entered a debate you weren’t invested in, except that was one of your mukti’s presumably so you felt invested. Hard keeping track hey. 

i didn’t say there were 250,000 HAL subscribers I said that’s what they’d need to give the HAL clubs the same revenue as they’re getting now. 

Whether there are 250,000 potential subscribers is anyone’s guess but when someone says with certainty there aren’t, it’s only reasonable to ask for some evidence. Especially as all I was doing was speculating on what they’d need from such a venture to match current revenues. 

Maybe the trouble for you is, when you spend all day agreeing with your own multi you start to believe you’re own shit?