Football Federation Australia CEO David Gallop wants the A-League shown on a commercial TV network, "but insists it has to be at the right price," according to Roje Adaimy of THE ROAR.
FFA Chair Steven Lowy last week labeled as “unsatisfactory” the current free-to-air arrangement with SBS, which is part of a deal with Fox Sports that has one more season left to run.
He said that "it needed to change and that work on the next broadcast rights deal had already started."
Gallop said, "It’s absolutely key to get the right mix. Fox Sports have been huge investors in Australian football, they run every game live, but of course free-to-air and through a commercial network would lift our level of exposure to the population." Asked how much he was "willing to sacrifice financially" to get the game on one of the likes of Channel Nine, Seven or Ten, Gallop said that "it was a balance."
The current deal is worth A$40M ($30.7M) a year.
Gallop: "Of course we want to get a significant uplift in our fees but we also recognize that it would be a major step for the A-League to get onto a commercial network and that’s our goal" (THE ROAR, 5/2). The AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW's John Stensholt wrote Lowy and other FFA execs, including Gallop, "have entertained guests from all three big commercial networks in the past week." Lowy said that FFA "needed a presence on the big networks such as Seven West Media, Nine Entertainment Co and Network Ten and would pursue the matter aggressively."
One "stumbling block" to that could be that Fox Sports owns "first and last" bidding rights for the next deal, potentially giving it the opportunity to match any other bids.
But when asked if FFA needed football on at least one of the big three channels, Lowy said, "Yes. Subscription TV accounts for about a third of households in the country. That is not enough. Free-to-air has a much stronger penetration and there is strong interest from free-to-air." Lowy said that FFA wanted to maximize the revenue it "would garner from its next deal." Lowy: "Our objective ... is to work with the broader market. We have a clear understanding of the changes that are happening in regards to free-to-air television, subscription television and the newer methods of distribution" (AFR, 5/1).
