Swimming Australia "signed a game-changing nine-year broadcasting deal with the Seven Network that will see the national trials return to live, prime-time free-to-air television for the first time in seven years," according to Nicole Jeffery of THE AUSTRALIAN. The sport’s profile "has languished" since '08 when it signed an eight-year deal with the Ten Network "which saw it relegated to the network’s secondary station, OneHD." However, SA "has managed to extricate itself from the final year of that deal in order to sign a long-term agreement with Seven that it believes will regain the prime-time exposure it enjoyed during the sport’s golden era around the time of the Sydney Olympics." The sport’s leaders believe that "the new TV deal is so important that they have agreed to move next year’s Olympic trials forward by one day to accommodate the network and to maximise the event’s exposure." SA CEO Mark Anderson explained that "the Thursday start was to the sport’s advantage as it would ensure the first night of the trials was on Seven’s main channel." He said, "The key thing in terms of our discussions was to get the biggest profile possible for the Olympic trials. ... With Seven already doing the Olympics and the 2018 Commonwealth Games, it’s great to be aligned with them." Anderson said Ten had been magnanimous in agreeing to make "an early exit" from its broadcast deal (THE AUSTRALIAN, 9/24).
