Foxtel, Telstra extend broadcast deal with AFL until 2024

Foxtel and Telstra have extended their broadcast right deal with the AFL by two years until the end of 2024 season.

Dusty Martin. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

Foxtel has extended its AFL broadcast rights until the end of the 2024 season, which will ­consolidate its Kayo streaming arm as the key digital platform for the nation’s biggest sport.

The new deal effectively prevents streaming players such as Stan Sport and Amazon from making a play on the AFL for ­another five years.

Both Foxtel and Telstra announced a two-year extension agreement on Wednesday, some six months after the AFL struck a similar agreement with the Kerry Stokes-controlled Seven West Media.

At the time, the AFL also gave Foxtel and Seven a discount of around 20 per cent on their ­existing three-year broadcast deals as the coronavirus crisis wreaked havoc on the 2020 ­football season.

While Foxtel is now paying more for its share of the rights, the new deal heightens the importance of the fast-growing Kayo service, which emerges with a better set of streaming rights than the previous deal that saw Telstra have the lion’s share of live streaming.

Kayo is a critical part of Foxtel’s growth strategy, which now has the crucial winter football codes — the highest ratings sports in the country by far — sewn up for another four years for the AFL and seven years for rugby league.

Foxtel boss Patrick Delany said it was pleased to extend its 18-year partnership with the AFL after a rollercoaster year.

“While we had two years to run on the deal, it seemed the right time to add another two years,” Mr Delany said. “We continue now as the home of sport in Australia through the Foxtel and Kayo platforms.”

A Foxtel spokesman said the rights deal extension “resets the discounts associated with Covid and is financially little changed from the original 2017-22 agreement”.

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan said the revised Foxtel/Telstra deal, together with Seven West’s contract extension in June, would deliver $946m to the AFL industry over 2023 and 2024.

“After a challenging and at times uncertain 2020, this is a massive vote of confidence in our game at all levels,” he said during a media video call with journalists.

“It provides greater financial certainty in the years ahead and ensures our fans continue to have the ability to watch men‘s and women’s footy wherever they are.”

Mr McLachlan said he was “very pleased” with Wednesday’s deal, adding that its ­partnership with Foxtel ­and Telstra continues to showcase its game to as many people as possible.

Foxtel is majority-owned by News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian and counts Telstra as a shareholder.