Broadcast options for Australian Rugby

[wamberal]

Not to mention countries like Italy in 6N and Kenya who are in the world 7s tour. After soccer, rugby is probably the most internationally popular team sport. As has been noted before, the only place in the world that rugby isn't going gangbusters is Australia.

And, except for a few brief years, rugby has struggled in Australia. Why? Because there is a very similar game (relative to other sports that are played internationally) that has pretty much always been richer, more professional, and simpler which takes a lot of our potential market for players, supporters, sponsors, etc. The game shares our name, and looks quite a bit like our game. Very tough competition, pretty much unique amongst the rugby world.

And of course there is another home-grown game which has owned the southern states for as long as I can remember, and for many years before that.

Our unique situation was recognised many years ago when we were given what was known as the "Australian dispensation", a local variant to the Laws of the Game, designed to make the game more attractive to the local hoi-polloi. No kicking out on the full, except from the 25 (as it then was).


That was then, but in some ways we are still left with a game which fewer and fewer people are interested in watching or playing, compared with the two big competitors. Oh. Plus soccer, of course. Who could forget?

 

[Quick Hands]

^^^All this is true Wamberal, but we need to try to work out some way to be better.

The international standing of rugby, the increasing place of the women's game and its Olympic status are the best things that we have going for us.

6 hours of FTA coverage today on the main channel of the women's BBL on channel 10. I've made the point over on the NRC thread that we need to get a women's version up and running ASAP. FTA networks are falling over themselves to televise women's sport. Let's be ahead of the others for once (even if it's a 7s NRC for the women - make it happen in 2017, play it at a curtain raiser). Much better bargaining position for FTA coverage.

 

[wamberal]

I admire your enthusiasm.

 

[Quick Hands]

^^^^Merely observations on what FTA want at the moment.

 

[Quick Hands]

Not to labour the point, but yesterday on Channel 10 (on the main channel) there were 6 hours of women's BBL broadcast live. I also noted that the annual Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge now has a women's match (15 a side) - which was televised here on Fox.

Women's netball gets FTA coverage in the winter.

I can't stress enough how important having a women's competition is to getting rugby on to FTA.

I also noted that the women's BBL match rated not that far below the 3rd mens ODI.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Not to labour the point, but yesterday on Channel 10 (on the main channel) there were 6 hours of women's BBL broadcast live. I also noted that the annual Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge now has a women's match (15 a side) - which was televised here on Fox.

Women's netball gets FTA coverage in the winter.

I can't stress enough how important having a women's competition is to getting rugby on to FTA.

I also noted that the women's BBL match rated not that far below the 3rd mens ODI.

Well, TOCC mentioned that more details including the location of the teams is set to be made public on Wednesday for the Womens 7s league. Also set for September apparently. So we will have something to take to market in 2017. Hopefully the ARU can capitalise on the recent drive to get Womens leagues on TV and gain some coverage.

 

[barbarian]

A-League have a new deal with Fox Sports.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/...ast-deal-with-fox-sports-20161220-gteyq4.html

They are holding back one Saturday night game to potentially sell off to an FTA network, though it seems there isn't a huge amount of interest in it at the moment.

They are publicly stating that this will be further discussed after the next round of BBL negotiations, which might leave 9 or 10 looking for a Summer sporting option.

If they can find an FTA network at the right price it's a great result for them, and something the ARU should look to follow. Though it's worth pointing out it's much harder for rugby to find a home in the crowded winter - the A-League's summer slot is a big advantage as they have so few competitors!
.

 

[TOCC]

Biggest difference is that the A-League have more games to sell.. ARU only has 5 Australian teams compared to the A-Leagues 10, and due to the different time zones there no guarantee that there will be an Australian game to broadcast on Fri/Sat prime time, let alone having an extra game to offload to a FTA network.

On a good weekend there will be Super Rugby running from 5:30-9:30pm AEST on Friday and 3:30-1130pm on Saturday, but twice in 2016 there wasn't a Super Rugby game to broadcast in the prime time spot on Saturday night.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Apparently there's international rights still to be negotiated but considering the A-League would be way down that list they'll be lucky to get past $65m in all. Despeite the talk interest from FTA channels appears to be minimal as they have all made it clear that its the BBL they are currently coveting.

 

[Quick Hands]

Biggest difference is that the A-League have more games to sell.. ARU only has 5 Australian teams compared to the A-Leagues 10, and due to the different time zones there no guarantee that there will be an Australian game to broadcast on Fri/Sat prime time, let alone having an extra game to offload to a FTA network.

On a good weekend there will be Super Rugby running from 5:30-9:30pm AEST on Friday and 3:30-1130pm on Saturday, but twice in 2016 there wasn't a Super Rugby game to broadcast in the prime time spot on Saturday night.

It's the great conundrum of super rugby. It solves one issue for Aust rugby (competition), but in terms of accessability to new and even existing audiences, it's not what we need at all.

 

[half]

Apparently there's international rights still to be negotiated but considering the A-League would be way down that list they'll be lucky to get past $65m in all. Despeite the talk interest from FTA channels appears to be minimal as they have all made it clear that its the BBL they are currently coveting.

Just went and read up on their deal, this is my understanding.

Fox for the 10 team A-League will pay 57 million per year for 6 years including broadcast cost. Plus FFA have some things to sell on top of the 57 million.

So Fox 57 million
Plus sale of Digital rights [Telstra or Optus I guess]
Sale of Saturday night game to either 7, 9 or 10, [see note below]
Sale of international rights to the A-League

Plus provision to grow to 12 or more teams with Fox to pick up broadcasting's costs and the match can be sold to either Fox, a commercial FTA, or both.

Estimates vary depending on who you speak too, but the existing ten teams without the overseas sales vary between 65 to 80 million arguably closer to 70 million. 57 million + digital + [7,9,10] ..??? plus international sales.

Re note on Saturday, it will be their match of the round, plus finals, plus Socceroo friendlies. 5 to 15 million is the talked of amount that will be paid by the commercial FTA station. FFA have held back so they go with the station that does not get the BBL i assume so they are not number 2 with the station.

No idea what the outcome will be for the international sales, but the talk in the street seems to be they will end up for the existing 10 teams around 70 to 75 million.

Plus the sale of their new match, when they add another two teams.

On top of all this they get paid for Socceroo matches controlled under the AFC and estimates are between 12 & 16 million per year.

Trying to make sense of their deal to me seems they wanted to create a base to work from. There union and club owners react differently to our union and club CEO's.

Until its finally known its difficult to compare to ours, which I think is 56 million but includes national teams, and if I am right 30 million of overseas sales of Super Rugby to Europe.

 

[flat_eric]

In the end the deal will prove to be a pretty good one for the FFA. It should work out to be around double the windfall of the previous deal when all is said and done. The game has come on tremendously when you consider their position at the inception of the A-League.

Let's hope rugby can emulate some of that growth in the coming years.

 

[half]

Apparently there's international rights still to be negotiated but considering the A-League would be way down that list they'll be lucky to get past $65m in all. Despeite the talk interest from FTA channels appears to be minimal as they have all made it clear that its the BBL they are currently coveting.

Not so sure on that time will tell I suppose.

FFA have taken a strategic move, you can see the influence and brains of Lowy behind this. They have established a base i.e. Fox. FFA can put together 30 to 40 decent matches across a season.

The strategic move is to wait for the cricket deal to be finalised and go with the looser. Meaning they will be top dog with the channel over summer and the FTA will have cash as they lost the cricket. I think its very clever.

65 million is only 8 million more than Fox are paying and FFA are selling digital rights, FTA 27 rounds, 5 finals, plus Socceroo and Matilda friendlies , that’s maybe 40 games, plus international sales of the A-League. IMO that looks like it worth a lot more than 8 million.

As I said time will tell, what their international sales are god only knows who they will sell to and how much they will get.


There are countless articles out there on this deal, what I find annoying is everyone can see the process and what they are doing. With ours its all close to the chest stuff and worst we don’t get to make the decisions FFA are making. SANDZZAR make our decisions.

 

[wamberal]

Without SANZAR we do not have a second tier product, though.


Without Saffer money we do not have a product. And I suppose the hope is that Japan will eventually catch fire a bit.

 

[Strewthcobber]

Interesting that Optus paid $63m per year for the EPL, a fair bit more than the FFA is getting for the A-League.

Worth remembering how strong the interest is in football (soccer) in this country. The FFA's challange is to try and get some of that interest directed at the local competition.

The ARU have a much bigger challenge - getting people interested in both the sport and the competition.

 

[TOCC]

Without SANZAR we do not have a second tier product, though.


Without Saffer money we do not have a product. And I suppose the hope is that Japan will eventually catch fire a bit.

It's not Saffa money, it's the Saffa time slot

 

[half]

Interesting that Optus paid $63m per year for the EPL, a fair bit more than the FFA is getting for the A-League.

Worth remembering how strong the interest is in football (soccer) in this country. The FFA's challange is to try and get some of that interest directed at the local competition.

The ARU have a much bigger challenge - getting people interested in both the sport and the competition.

Strewth

Today I got caught up in reading about their deal, and what amazes me is the amount of detail in the public domain.

To your point you mentioned, for me I am the guy thats wants new teams and a break away from SANDZZAR id possible.

She who must be obeyed a die in the wool Mariners fan showed me this post on their forum and I through OMG they have something of a plan and have developed it with Fox and together they are going to sell it to the looser of the cricket.

This post more than anything IMO shows why we need new teams and as I always stress today rugby out rates soccer on a match by match basic.

Read this and you can see the plan and it looks very achievable. I am sure we could do the same if not better. Leave it to late and don't react and we are in real trouble.

To the post
.

"" Patrick Delaney (Foxsports CEO) interview last night on the World of Football Show on SEN radio with David Davutovic and Michael Zappone. He was asked where he wants football to be in 6 years time, by the time this new deal ends, and his response was;
– they’d like ratings averaging 100k on Foxsports
– they’d like ratings averaging 200-300k on a FTA channel
– more teams, so the comp doesn’t become stale, and the same clubs don’t keep playing each other 3 times in the FFA cup, plus FFA Cup and Finals
– he was also asked about expansion, and he said that he didn’t care about how many Foxtel boxes or current customers were in that area (he was being asked about Tasmania specifically), it was more about growing the comp and the sport. New teams needed to add to the competition.""

 

[Strewthcobber]

Read this and you can see the plan and it looks very achievable. I am sure we could do the same if not better. Leave it to late and don't react and we are in real trouble.

To the post
.

"" Patrick Delaney (Foxsports CEO) interview last night on the World of Football Show on SEN radio with David Davutovic and Michael Zappone. He was asked where he wants football to be in 6 years time, by the time this new deal ends, and his response was;
– they’d like ratings averaging 100k on Foxsports
– they’d like ratings averaging 200-300k on a FTA channel
– more teams, so the comp doesn’t become stale, and the same clubs don’t keep playing each other 3 times in the FFA cup, plus FFA Cup and Finals
– he was also asked about expansion, and he said that he didn’t care about how many Foxtel boxes or current customers were in that area (he was being asked about Tasmania specifically), it was more about growing the comp and the sport. New teams needed to add to the competition.""

Looks like they went to the same consultant as the ARU

The Australian Rugby Strategic Plan sets out some ambitious targets for 2020, including but not limited to the following:
*356,500 participants across the three formats of Rugby – XVs, Sevens and VIVA7s
*Increase female participation rate to 15% of all participants across three formats
*Average Aus TV viewership of 100,000 for every Super Rugby match played in Aus
*Average Aus TV viewership of 1 million for every Rugby Championship match played in Aus
*Retain 100% of full season members year on year
*Achieve 1.1 million ticket sales for Wallabies Test matches over the period 2016-2020
*Achieve 1 million visits per month to Rugby.com.au and Super Rugby team websites and generate a loyalty subscriber base of 500,000
*Achieve >85% of players in national programs having graduated through state and national pathway programs
*Wallabies: win the Rugby Championship, Bledisloe Cup and 2019 Rugby World Cup and at all times retain top 3 world ranking
*Wallabies: ranked number one as Australia’s most recognised national team brand
*Olympic (2016 & 2020) and Commonwealth Games (2018) Medals for men’s and women’s Sevens teams30% of women in Board roles, senior management roles, and 30% women in ARU staff

*Growth of a future fund to $10 million by 2020

 

[barbarian]

She who must be obeyed a die in the wool Mariners fan showed me this post on their forum and I through OMG they have something of a plan and have developed it with Fox and together they are going to sell it to the looser of the cricket.

I think the FFA like to think they will sell the FTA rights to the 'loser of the BBL', but I don't think it will be that simple.

This is an interesting read, here are a few key pars:

DeciderTV can reveal the Nine Network has informed the FFA they will not place a bid for the A-League.

Nine has expressed concern at the competitions low rating performance on SBS, plus the difficulty of inserting advertising into a match that is being simulcast by Fox Sports.

Nine has instead made the decision to save its dollars for the upcoming battle over Cricket rights which will be fiercely competitive with Seven and a Ten/Foxtel partnership expected to make big offers to secure the game.

They are gambling on one of these networks coming to the table, though there is no guarantee that will happen.

I think it's a good play overall, though. Taking the $$ on offer from Pay TV but giving yourself an opening to go to FTA if an offer comes in.
.

 

[Braveheart81]

SANDZZAR

She who must be obeyed

Can we just refer to these things by their actual names?

Add in Papa Smurf and any other confusing nicknames you have for things.

Today I got caught up in reading about their deal, and what amazes me is the amount of detail in the public domain.

What exactly is missing or unavailable regarding other TV rights deals (and presumably you're referencing rugby)?

The press releases and articles about the FFA deal seem pretty similar to any other sports' announcements.