ol mate scoops manure is saying what everyone was pretty much expecting blavatnik to be saying - afl rights are massively overvalued and he'd like to tighten them up

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/foxtel-s-afl-deal-cost-billions-now-its-owner-wants-to-pay-less-and-it-has-form-20251125-p5nieg.html

take it with some grain of salt of course - the age is owned by ninefax who are currently in battle with dazn for the nrl rights going forward...

Edited Wednesday at 12:182 days by whatwhat say what

can someone interpret the above into english?

Coincidentally (I'm sure, thank you non-corporeal robot overlords) my facebook spam just offered me a link to an article in The Atlantic about how utterly messed up the sports broadcasting has become in the US.

Paywalled, of course, but the intro paragraphs kind of tell you the thrust. I presume. Who can be bothered signing up for a free trial of such things?

The Atlantic

Why Can’t I Just Watch Sports on Television?

It shouldn’t be this hard to be a fan.

2 hours ago, DubDee said:

can someone interpret the above into english?

Basically they have recently broken contracts with other sports rather than continuing to over pay, word is they are also not happy with the AFL deal and the story speculated they could potentially try the same thing, big caveat is they had clauses in those deals allowing them to pay a contract break fee to get out, unless the AFL was stupid enough to include one then it’s probably not a comparable situation.

My opinion if came down to it there is basically 3 scenarios

1. AFL bend the knee and renegotiate the deal in some fashion in order to keep good relations going fwd, much like what happened during Covid

2. AFL hold them to the contract potentially damaging that relationship to AFLs detriment next time tv rights come up.

3. If the AFL play hard ball the new Foxtel owners DAZN pull AFL from the service and stop payment and it all ends up in court, not very likely imo

Scoops manure is diabolical 💀

Is there any chance to 'internationalize' the AFL?

Say if any of DAZN or Amazon, or similar global conglomerates, got the broadcasting rights. Wouldn't this be an opportunity for more exposure overseas?

2 hours ago, ElDiablo14 said:

Is there any chance to 'internationalize' the AFL?

Say if any of DAZN or Amazon, or similar global conglomerates, got the broadcasting rights. Wouldn't this be an opportunity for more exposure overseas?

dazn already holds the afl rights globally, and try to monetise it through the 'watch afl' portal that foxtel has control over, and telstra had before that, but the subscription base was always tiny

we're a small domestic sport and as such there is miminal interest in the sport at a global level

to increase its exposure would cost the afl a fortune, but the afl does not like spending money it should have been a targeted appproach 30-40 years ago

DAZN has done horrible things to boxing and other sports media, would hate to see them get the deal

3 hours ago, whatwhat say what said:

dazn already holds the afl rights globally, and try to monetise it through the 'watch afl' portal that foxtel has control over, and telstra had before that, but the subscription base was always tiny

we're a small domestic sport and as such there is miminal interest in the sport at a global level

to increase its exposure would cost the afl a fortune, but the afl does not like spending money it should have been a targeted appproach 30-40 years ago

Things may be different these days. After all people seem to be hungry for content. There's so much you can give to the masses from the popular sports

Even if there is no change under the current broadcast rights deal, the attitude of DAZN, as the current owner of Foxtel, will be significant for the next deal. It is not helped by the AFL continuing to bow down to the Seven Network (as seen by relatively recent decisions, such as dropping FTA football on Saturday nights, the expansion of Thursday night football, and the introduction of Mildcard round (my favourite deliberate mis-spelling)). The AFL needs a competitive marketplace for the next rights deal and won't achieve that if it doesn't stand up more to Seven.

You sell your soul to the Devil it has consequences

27 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Even if there is no change under the current broadcast rights deal, the attitude of DAZN, as the current owner of Foxtel, will be significant for the next deal. It is not helped by the AFL continuing to bow down to the Seven Network (as seen by relatively recent decisions, such as dropping FTA football on Saturday nights, the expansion of Thursday night football, and the introduction of Mildcard round (my favourite deliberate mis-spelling)). The AFL needs a competitive marketplace for the next rights deal and won't achieve that if it doesn't stand up more to Seven.

Foxtel/Kayo bought the rights to Saturday's, it wasn't necessarily ch7 dropping out

As for Thursday night games, that's been a success

As for DAZN, if they can opt out of AFL, they probably will

What we might be left with is anyone's guess but another streaming service is on the cards (and the consequences of such a move)

The biggie for me is if the NRL on Ch9 can continually beat the footy on Ch7 ... no one likes coming 2nd

As previously stated numerous times, it's all about the neutral eyes, not the rusted on types

23 minutes ago, Macca said:

Foxtel/Kayo bought the rights to Saturday's, it wasn't necessarily ch7 dropping out

As for Thursday night games, that's been a success

As for DAZN, if they can opt out of AFL, they probably will

What we might be left with is anyone's guess but another streaming service is on the cards (and the consequences of such a move)

The biggie for me is if the NRL on Ch9 can continually beat the footy on Ch7 ... no one likes coming 2nd

As previously stated numerous times, it's all about the neutral eyes, not the rusted on types

I'll argue that Thursday night footy is not the success claimed because of the collateral damage to Saturday night and to some extent Friday night football. I'm sure others will disagree with me.

@La Dee-vina Comedia

Ch7 are in the business of making money and it's all about the ratings and the advertising dollars

It's up to the AFL to get the best deal for their sport. It was just a few years ago that Ch7 took CA to court over the quality of the sport (specifically the BIg Bash)

So when you're forking out $Billions you want bang for your buck

If the sport was hugely watchable for the neutrals, it's a different conversation

So when considering that DAZN are an English firm, I can see them either opting out or brokering a different deal (if possible)

Some contracts are not watertight so watch this space ... DAZN have already dumped the French & Belgium leagues

Edited yesterday at 03:241 day by Macca

I would expect DAZN to apply pressure both to the AFL and NRL to reduce the cost of the present deal or at least the next deal .Foxtel was in a paradoxical position .On one hand it could not afford to have the NRL and AFL deals because of the enormous outlay.But on the other hand could not afford to not have the deals because it would have left Foxtel bereft of watchable content .So Murdoch then did have something to sell to Blatvanik even if it contained overpriced agreements .You would expect DAZN as an international streaming conglomerate now to sweeten the sale by reducing the costs to it of NRL and AFL

I hope we don't get to the point where we need to get Paramount for the Saturday 1:20pm game, Netflix for the Saturday 4:35pm, Stan for the Saturday night game and Disney for the Sunday 1:10pm game.

I see us heading there in 8-15 years time.

I wish they would sell Scoops to DAZN.

If dazn baulks at the price Stan will come knocking I think.

You simply can't make a profit as a streamer in Australia paying the existing AFL fee.

A simple calculation of households and monthly fee shows that.

Perhaps you can do it with ads, no subscription sharing, a higher monthly charge, twelve month contracts etc but even then it's marginal.

What is interesting is can you make a profit streaming a bunch of secondary (in Australia) sports such as NFL, NBA etc.

Foxtel was to Australian Sport like Alan Bond was to Kerry Packer. Channel 7 would have also been laughing at getting the best part of the deal while Foxtel paid the lion's share of the rights fee.

Nine seems to be the new kid on the block with its Stan expansion. At least it owns both the FTA and the pay platforms.

Let's hope we don't end up with a deal like US viewers have with the NFL. IIRC you need around seven subscriptions to watch every NFL game.

First off however are the NRL negotiations. They could decide the game/war.

3 hours ago, Diamond_Jim said:

You simply can't make a profit as a streamer in Australia paying the existing AFL fee.

A simple calculation of households and monthly fee shows that.

Perhaps you can do it with ads, no subscription sharing, a higher monthly charge, twelve month contracts etc but even then it's marginal.

What is interesting is can you make a profit streaming a bunch of secondary (in Australia) sports such as NFL, NBA etc.

Foxtel was to Australian Sport like Alan Bond was to Kerry Packer. Channel 7 would have also been laughing at getting the best part of the deal while Foxtel paid the lion's share of the rights fee.

Nine seems to be the new kid on the block with its Stan expansion. At least it owns both the FTA and the pay platforms.

Let's hope we don't end up with a deal like US viewers have with the NFL. IIRC you need around seven subscriptions to watch every NFL game.

First off however are the NRL negotiations. They could decide the game/war.

Yes, the NRL broadcast rights could end up elsewhere than Foxtel/Kayo

Especially if the AFL rights can't be budged from it's total amount as it stands (Foxtel/Kayo) ... sounds like it's too much of a commitment to cover both sports

Wouldn't surprise me if Stan end up with the NRL and DAZN & the AFL continue to be in conflict. It's not ideal for the broadcast partners to be warring with each other

So far, we've heard DAZN air their grievances out in public. Will the AFL even respond given the large amount of money at stake? Might be best to say nothing

1 hour ago, Macca said:

Yes, the NRL broadcast rights could end up elsewhere than Foxtel/Kayo

Especially if the AFL rights can't be budged from it's total amount as it stands (Foxtel/Kayo) ... sounds like it's too much of a commitment to cover both sports

Wouldn't surprise me if Stan end up with the NRL and DAZN & the AFL continue to be in conflict. It's not ideal for the broadcast partners to be warring with each other

So far, we've heard DAZN air their grievances out in public. Will the AFL even respond given the large amount of money at stake? Might be best to say nothing

always need to take ninefax reporting on broadcast rights with some degree of sceptism - the age is owned by ninefax who are currently in battle with dazn for the nrl rights going forward...

also, worth mentioning in here that afl media are set to make significant cuts to their broadcast backend set-up...

AFL cuts media jobs and closes main studio in pivot to outsourcing

Major job cuts have hit the AFL’s media department as the league abandons some in-house production in favour of content creators and outsourcing.

he AFL has cut a number of jobs from its media arm and closed its main studio as it pivots to outsourcing to content creators.

An email sent to staff in the AFL’s media team on Wednesday made clear the league would decommission ‘Studio A’ at AFL House in Docklands, leading to redundancies among the production team.

Multiple sources told this masthead the most recent redundancies numbered at least 10 and several other staffers had left the media and commercial team since the men’s grand final in September, but the AFL would not confirm a number.

Link for more: https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/afl-cuts-media-jobs-and-closes-main-studio-in-pivot-to-outsourcing/news-story/1ec37d302a92c41ab6c7f580ef912a27

6 hours ago, whatwhat say what said:

always need to take ninefax reporting on broadcast rights with some degree of sceptism - the age is owned by ninefax who are currently in battle with dazn for the nrl rights going forward...

spot on

there's games being played.

They are stirring the pot on multiple fronts.

Strangely though if anything they are talking up the rights value.

Could they be playing the long game and waiting to pick up the pieces ??