Its One up for Soccer as it shifts to Ten

Its One up for Soccer as it shifts to Ten

So, the FFA has got its wish and gets the A-League on to a free to air commercial network for the first time in a deal which sees Network Ten become soccer's terrestrial television partner.

But what does it all mean?

Is Ten's A-League grab just a backup for a TV network fearful of losing its main television product, the Big Bash League?


Is soccer now poised to make the breakthrough all those who for decades have argued that it is on the cusp of doing, with a mainstream television audience giving it a critical mass of supporters to add to its record number of participants.

Or is the deal merely a hedge by a TV station fearful of losing its main television sport product, Big Bash Cricket, stashing away something like soccer as a back up lest it has nothing to engage its audience with during the summer?


Yes, soccer is now on Ten. Well, sort of. Its actually going to be broadcast on Ten's secondary platform, One, live on Saturday nights for what will be the week's blockbuster game.

This is not an unusual occurrence, it should be said. In the UK, horse racing has just signed a money-making deal with the leading FTA commercial network ITV, but many of the telecasts are being shown on secondary platforms ITV 3 and ITV 4 there.

The deal it delivers a much broader potential customer base than SBS' second channel, the ghetto to which Friday night A-League coverage had been consigned.

And given the popularity of many of Ten's offerings on its main channel – Master Chef and a slew of reality and celebrity driven shows – the opportunities for cross promotion are terrific.

Given the multinational mix of so many A-League sides, a specially themed soccer Master Chef might provide compelling.

Melbourne Victory's former centre back, Spaniard Alan Baro, could weigh in with a Paella, while Brisbane's ex marquee man Thomas Broich could supply sauerkraut and sausages, Frenchman Fahid Ben Khalfallah might play sommelier with the wine, German raised Kosovan Besart Berisha could bring the beer while South Americans like Bruno Fornaroli and Fernando Brandan from Melbourne City could show us all how to cook a streak properly. The possibilities would seem endless.

So from that point of view the deal gets a tick. It's certainly an improvement on Viceland, whatever that was.

Quite how invested Ten will be remains to be seen. The free-to-air broadcaster is picking up lock stock and barrel the Fox Sports commentary and production of the Saturday night game, so we can expect a lot of cross promotion for Fox, too, as the pay television operator takes every opportunity to promote its subscription deals.

Moneywise this deal is hardly earth-shattering.

FFA hoped, when it began a lengthy bid process for the rights, that there would be intense competition from existing broadcaster Fox and a host of rival operators – Seven, Nine and Ten, and perhaps Optus and other streaming or telco companies.

David Gallop, the FFA CEO, was often heard to be musing that a $100 million a year deal might be possible.

Chump change when compared to the billions that AFL and NRL generate, but a nice little earner when compared to the $240 million deal hammered out between Ten and Fox Sports for V8 Supercars, covering the 2015-2020 period, and certainly likely to be a lot more than the undisclosed sum netball received from Nine and Telstra when it struck its most recent agreement.

In the end interest was zero, with none of the mainstream companies interested in shelling out a sizeable sum for the free to air rights.

Fox was the only game in town, inking a $346 million deal for the next six years, a sum which averages out at less than $60 million a year: still miles better than where the game was a decade ago, but less than where it was aspiring to go.

It is through that deal that the FTA rights now go to Ten.

Because the consultants hired by the FFA to broker a rich deal failed to get a result, the free-to-air rights go back to Fox, who will now pay a further $2 million to the game's governing body and then charge Ten a fee for supplying it with content.

There are two ways of looking at the failure to secure a big money free-to-air deal.

Either those charged with selling the product weren't good enough to get one or that they tried their best but ran up against a brutal reality: that the big media beasts do not see soccer as that much of an attraction, certainly not if they are expected to pay through the nose to get it.

The next few years, when soccer is on a more accessible station should give a far better indication of which of those propositions is true.

The new deal kicks in for the upcoming A-League campaign, starting in October, and for Socceroos games after the World Cup Qualifiers finish later this year.

The 7.30 Saturday night game will be broadcast live and it is expected that it will feature the competition's blockbuster games amongst the best supported teams.

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