Confusion over A-League TV deal with Channel Ten as Fox Sports waits for talks
With just seven weeks to go until the new A-League season, there is still no confirmation on whether any games will be shown on free-to-air television.
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Hopes of introducing primetime free-to-air TV coverage of the A-League remain mired in uncertainty just seven weeks from the start of the new season.
The main rights holder, Fox Sports, is yet to be involved in any talks about divesting some of its rights, The Daily Telegraph understands, a crucial factor in whether there will be games on free-to-air (FTA) in the new campaign.
A-Leagues bosses have been in talks with the Ten Network for months about broadcasting two games each round exclusively on its main Ten channel in a bid to reignite public interest in the competition.
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But the merger of Ten’s US parent, CBS, with entertainment giant Viacom has held up approval of that proposed deal, with the clock ticking towards the start of the new season.
A greater impediment though is likely to be the exclusive rights Fox holds to show all five games, one of which can be simulcast on free-to-air TV under the terms of the current broadcast agreement.
Though the pay-TV broadcaster has spoken of divesting itself of “non-marquee” content, The Daily Telegraph understands that its executives have not been approached to discuss their willingness to sell the exclusive rights to two games each round.
Fox Sports, owned by News Corp, the publisher of this newspaper, is believed to be planning for the new season on the basis it will show all five games live, as in every season previously.
Club owners have effectively been running the league since the start of August, and have held talks with Fox about their overall strategy to rejuvenate a competition whose crowds and TV ratings have fallen for several seasons.
But so far it’s understood there have been no direct talks with the network about reshaping the broadcast contract to include a far greater FTA component.
Club owners are likely to seek multi-party talks in coming days with executives from Foxtel, Fox Sports and Ten to see if there is potential for a deal to be struck, in which Ten would show the early evening games on Saturdays and Sundays.
The heavily delayed draw for the coming season has been designed to allow for that, with several “marquee” fixtures scheduled in those timeslots.
But with just weeks to go until the start of the new season, the opportunity to market those games is narrowing.
For the past two years Fox Sports effectively bought a slot on Ten’s subsidiary channels and broadcast its own coverage of the Saturday night A-League fixture.
But without any incentive for Ten to market the games the ratings were poor, accentuating a trend seen when SBS previously had the FTA rights.
A-League bosses are likely to argue to Ten that having two games on the main Ten channel will attract viewers who might then be tempted to subscribe to Fox and to its new streaming service, Kayo.
Originally published as Confusion over A-League TV deal with Channel Ten as Fox Sports waits for talks