serious14 said:
FTA Coverage of Sport in Australia, outside of Football on SBS and AFL on Channel 10, is _laughable_. There's a video that was made by a Melbourne fan running around on YouTube of the Australia-Uruguay shootout that has Channel 9 promoting their new piece of crap sitcom in the middle of it all, and going to an ad as Aloi$i comes in to take the shot. It's a funny piece of exaggeration, but the scary thing is that would not be far from the truth.
But thats just it its exaggeration based on not much more than fear.
serious14 said:
I understand where you're coming from Dibo, but that train of thought is symptomatic of pretty much everything that ever happens in Australia - so 10 years ago. Pay TV is the way of the future, that's just the way things are going to be. It's already that way in a lot of other places........ shite, even Thailand has more football on Pay then on free-to-air. _Thailand_!!!!
Leaving aside the still hypothetical possibility of the Feds getting interesting on digital multi-channelling of sport, our positions are closer than you think. Fox will be broadcasting most of the matches no matter how the deal is structured, simply because FTA networks dont have enough room in their schedules and football is not going to be their number one program. Theyll show a match live, maybe in ten years they might show two. Well be in a similar place to rugby league.
Theres an important thing to note here when the AFL did their last rights deal, they were bought up for an absolute bomb by the 7/10 partnership. Fox dont hold any direct rights. 7/10 then had to negotiate with Fox a price that Fox would be willing to pay to show games. At one point when protracted negotiations looked like they might falter, SBS was tapped on the shoulder and essentially asked if they might be able to show some games. 7/10 had to offer it to somebody because the structure of the deal was such that the games had to be shown.
This is a massively important point for us, and will influence the nature of any future deal. We write a clause into the contract saying each and every game must be shown live (and presumably in keeping with FIFA requirements, with game time uninterrupted by advertisements) and thats the landscape that the networks have to operate in.
If a FTA network is interested, specify that at least one match must be shown live on FTA before content is sold on to Fox, and a viewable time (not necessarily prime time, but not at 3AM) highlights package must air on FTA.
Remember also that with the Socceroos coming to FTA again (through the help of the anti-siphoning list) the FTA network who buys that will likely be interested in the rest of the package a dozen games a year pales in comparison to at least 21 weeks plus finals to cement their home of football status.
serious14 said:
And from a more petty point of view - none of the FTA networks (aside from SBS) deserves to have football. They've rubbished on it for 50 years, yet all of a sudden they realise that's going to be a new cash cow in 5 - 10 years time, and here they come crawling back. F*ck 'em says I.
Deserve schmeserve. The rights arent going to go for peanuts, these f**kers will pay good cash. Once theyve paid good cash (and have a reasonable prospect of making some more from the game too) theyre in the boat with us.
Think about what theyre trying to do. Theyre trying to make money. They dont really care how they do it. The burying of the NSL by 7/C7 was done I think partly with the knowledge that they couldnt make a cent from it at the time and partly with the hope that wed go away and die and the market would remain the comfortable oligopoly of NRL/AFL/cricket.
Clearly were back from the dead, and looking healthier than ever. The games changed the oligopoly will have a new player. If they can make money from us, theyll be interested in keeping us healthy just as much as the others.