Matildas, Socceroos to remain on Network 10 for next five years

Football Australia has clinched a rich new broadcast deal with Paramount Australia that will see all matches involving the Socceroos and the Matildas – except for the next men’s FIFA World Cup – shown on either Network 10 or the paid Paramount+ streaming service.

The five-year agreement means Network 10 and Paramount+ will broadcast the Matildas’ next two major tournaments: the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup, which will be hosted by Australia, and the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil.

Michelle Heyman celebrates a goal for the Matildas.Credit: Eddie Jim

The vast majority of matches at both events, however, will be shown behind the Paramount+ paywall.

It is the first time FA’s national team rights have been sold as part of a bundle with both the Asian Football Confederation rights and the Women’s World Cup, which the federation secured in separate deals to then on-sell to boost the value of the rights they own.

FA would not disclose the financial terms of the deal; previous reports of a $200 million agreement were wide of the mark according to sources who were speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the confidential nature of the deal.

Chief executive James Johnson would only say it was a new high-water mark for FA’s broadcast revenues and would enable them to continue investing into growing the brands of both national teams and the programs of junior teams that sit beneath them.

WHAT’S INCLUDED IN FA’S NEW BROADCAST RIGHTS DEAL

• All Socceroos qualifiers for the 2026 men’s World Cup (home matches only on free-to-air, the rest on Paramount+)
• 2026 Women’s Asian Cup (six matches on free-to-air, the rest on Paramount+)
• 2027 Women’s World Cup (15 matches on free-to-air, the rest on Paramount+)
• 2027 men’s Asian Cup (all matches exclusively on Paramount+, the rest on Paramount+)
• All Socceroos and Matildas friendlies 2025-2028 (15 Matildas friendlies, 10 Socceroos friendlies on free-to-air, the rest on Paramount+)
• Australia Cup finals 2025-2028
• AFC U23 men’s Asian Cup 2026 and 2028

“It reflects, I think, the growth of the sport, and in particular the brands, the Socceroos and the Matildas, and also the aggregation of all the content that we’ve been able to bring together,” Johnson said. “We are reaching new heights in terms of investment.”

Paramount was largely unchallenged in its bidding for the rights, with FA keen to sell the rights to a single party. Both Foxtel and Nine (the owner of this masthead) looked at the rights but made no serious bid, sources familiar with the plans said.

Approximately half of all Socceroos and Matildas matches for the next broadcast cycle – there will be over 100 in total – will be shown behind a paywall, which is a roughly similar carve-up to the expiring deal, and was stipulated by FA in the tender process.

Just six matches from the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup (which doubles as the qualification tournament for the 2027 Women’s World Cup) and 15 from the Women’s World Cup will be shown on free-to-air, while 15 Matildas friendlies and 10 Socceroos friendlies over the next four years will also be on free-to-air, with the rest on Paramount+. By way of comparison, the Seven Network also broadcast 15 matches from last year’s Women’s World Cup, with the remainder on Optus Sport.

Football Australia chief executive James Johnson and Network 10 president Beverley McGarvey.

The federal government’s anti-siphoning list stipulates that only World Cup matches involving the two senior national teams, and any World Cup qualifiers played in Australia, must be shown on free-to-air television.

“There are more matches behind the paywall because there are more matches overall in terms of the national team games,” said Beverley McGarvey, president of Network 10 and Paramount Australia’s head of streaming and regional lead.

“There’ll be about 100 and half of them will be in front of the paywall. In terms of how we work it out, there are certain games that are big events, that are of national importance, that absolutely should be free-to-air, that the whole country absolutely will want to see. For the economics of the deal to make sense, of course, content has to live on Paramount+. The price point is $6.99 [per month] so if you’re a sports fan, if you’re a soccer fan ... it’s a fairly efficient entry point.”

The rights for the men’s World Cup – the next edition of which will be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada in 2026 – were sold by FIFA last year to SBS, which has been the Australian home of the tournament since 1986.

The deal cements Paramount as the one-stop shop for Australian football content, and sits alongside their existing contract to broadcast the A-Leagues, which has two more seasons to run. Paramount has an option in their favour to extend it by a further three years; due to a failure to hit subscription-based targets within the contract, it has turned out to be worth a lot less than the $40 million-per-season figured trumpeted by the Australian Professional Leagues when it was signed.

The APL has since undergone significant belt-tightening, making half its workforce redundant and reducing annual distributions to clubs to just $530,000 per season – the lowest figure since the A-League’s inception. Network 10 retains a small, symbolic ownership stake in the APL, which formed part of the current A-Leagues rights deal.

“They had lots of work to do, and they’ve done a lot of it,” McGarvey said. “I think they would hope they’re coming out the other side of it now and getting ready for a great new season.

“We wouldn’t have chased another FA deal if we didn’t believe in football. Football’s our sport. That’s what we have, that’s our main sport. And I say this just knowing our business well, Australia is a tough market size. We’re not big, and we’re not small. It’s tough to run particular types of businesses in Australia because we lack scale in certain areas and people have expectations here in terms of what they expect from their sporting codes, their entertainment propositions.”

While the APL is eager to discuss a renewal to shore up the financial future of A-League clubs, and is expected to begin the process of seeking a new rights deal by the end of the year, McGarvey said Paramount was in no rush.

Last week, Foxtel expressed an interest in potentially bidding for the A-Leagues rights again. Julian Ogrin, the CEO of Foxtel’s streaming and advertising division, which includes Kayo Sports, told Mumbrella the company would “absolutely” consider a bid for the A-Leagues, if the rights became available.

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