By Tony Wright
Saturday nights, when rain scuds in from the sea and the nights turn bitter, have always been footy nights in the backyard shed down the coast.
The boys – which is to say, a group of old mates who favour snowy beards and a liking for a beer – have reason to look forward to autumn and winter.
The footy.
Saturday AFL games have ended up behind a paywall.
The boys shrug at the howling wind and get the wood heater roaring in their shed. There’s an ageing lounge and chairs scattered around, and a home-hewn bar equipped with a fridge. An old big-screen TV hangs off the wall.
Last weekend, one of the mates rolled in with a trailer-load of wood to be sure the fire was fed when this year’s long stretch of summer finally surrenders.
Credit: Wilcox
But no cosy fire will be capable of properly warming the hearts of the boys in the shed on wintry Saturday nights from now on.
There will be no big-game live footy on the telly.
The wealthy masters of the game – tycoons of both pay TV and free TV – have put their heads together to carve up the rights to AFL matches, with the blessing of the bosses of the AFL itself.
And they’ve cancelled the old boys’ Saturday nights.
They’ve decided, these squillionaires and sports tsars, that there will be no live free-to-air AFL footy on Saturdays in Victoria or Tasmania, unless “marquee” games like Collingwood versus Essendon on Anzac Day happen to fall on a Saturday. Which this year, they won’t – not even Dreamtime at the ’G, which has been moved to Friday.
If you are a Victorian or a Taswegian and want to watch a Saturday game at home – or in the shed – you will be forced to watch it on Fox Footy by paying for a subscription to Foxtel or Kayo.
A subscription to Foxtel or Kayo? The internet?
The bloke who owns the shed down the coast is a pensioner.
Tell ’em they’re dreaming.
The fat cats who run the AFL and who own the pay and free-to-air networks don’t have to worry about trivial things like the cost of TV paywalls, of course.
Both Foxtel and Kayo have been owned, up to now, by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Telstra.
Recently, they agreed to sell Foxtel and Kayo to the British-based global sports streaming and entertainment outfit DAZN, pronounced, naturally, “da-zone”: street jive from just about anywhere other than Australia.
“Da-zone” is due to take over in the middle of this year, when the $3.4 billion sale is complete (Murdoch will still hold 6 per cent and Telstra 3 per cent).
It will inherit Foxtel’s wheeling and dealing with billionaire Kerry Stokes’ Seven Network and the AFL that has already decided the fate of Saturday footy.
Those responsible for this almost unbelievable state of affairs (sorry, it’s perfectly believable because large wads of money are involved – $4.5 billion for the TV and streaming rights over seven seasons, to be precise) have been spinning it like politicians caught with their pants down.
“In total,” spruiks the AFL, “there will be the same number of free-to-air games each year as the previous deal.”
True. But it’s sleight of hand.
“There will be an increase in Thursday night games under the new deal, with 23 already locked in for 2025, up from 14 last season.”
The Dreamtime at the ’G blockbuster has been moved to a Friday.Credit: AFL Photos
In other words, you lose out altogether on Saturday, the traditional evening for firing up the barbie and warming the telly over the past half century of TV footy. But, hey, you get more football games on Thursday nights.
To be fair, the blokes gather each week in the shed for what they call Thirsty Thursday, so they’ll welcome those Thursday games, even if it’s a school night for millions of the rest of us.
But they – and plenty of others – are unlikely to be forgiving of their stolen Saturdays.
“Thursday night footy is a key part of the free-to-air offering under the new agreement, with an average of at least three live matches per round on the Seven Network and 7plus,” smirks the AFL.
Oh, goody.
Buried in the second half of that statement is the confession. On average, you’ll get the chance to watch a generous THREE live AFL matches for free: one on Thursday, another on Friday and the other on Sunday.
The crucial day, the one that has pulled in the crowds since Tom Wills and six members of the Melbourne Cricket Club invented the rules of Australian football 166 years ago, has gone missing. Saturday. The AFL barely dares speak its name.
Footy lovers recognise – and hate – a staged dive. The AFL’s “explanation” is about as skilled as a dive taken by a primary school kid.
I was in the press gallery in Canberra in the early 1990s when the Keating government, alert to the introduction of pay TV, introduced what was called anti-siphoning legislation. It would ensure sports and major events deemed important to Australians could not be hijacked by big money and hidden behind paywalls.
Or so we thought. Silly us.
The legislation was updated by the Albanese government last year to cover streaming services. All along, the AFL was included on the allegedly protected anti-siphoning list.
But the legislation doesn’t do what we imagined it ought to do.
It simply means pay-TV or streaming services can’t gain the rights to broadcast an event before free-to-air television has been given the opportunity to acquire those rights.
In effect, if, say, Seven had been granted the opportunity by the AFL to acquire the rights to AFL games and had then done a deal to allow certain of those games – say, all of them on Saturdays in Victoria – to be shoved off and screened exclusively by Fox Footy and Kayo with the AFL’s blessing?
The law couldn’t do a thing about it.
Which ought to get Victorians very annoyed indeed.
Not just the boys in the shed.
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