Well this certainly came out of left field. Arguably one of Australian sports broadcasting’s most tenured and iconic code relationships is suddenly about to come to a complete, crashing halt.
SBS has revealed it is in the process of – rather unceremoniously, it should be added – dumping soccer completely from its broadcasting obligations.
Fairfax Media reports that the network is in talks with other free-to-air channels about offloading the remaining two years of its contract to air the A League. Their current deal sees them broadcast one game per week – the league’s Friday night fixture – which they have in partnership with Fox Sports until the end of the 2017 season.
However any shift to a larger network might not necessarily equate to good news for the game, with ratings in the lower range – in part due to SBS’s initial decision to air the games on SBS2 – meaning that any broadcast of the A League is likely to be bumped to a digital multichannel, rather than put on in primetime on any network’s primary feed.
In addition, SBS maintains the rights to air Socceroos matches – again, along with Fox – until the end of 2017. Channel Seven has expressed their interest in making a bid for that contract when the current deal expires in 2017, though this decision by the SBS could expedite that process.
The real head-scratcher out of all of this is the possibility that the SBS might also, in fact, give up the rights to broadcast the FIFA World Cup. SBS has aired every World Cup since 1990, so any switch would mark a huge change for Australian sports broadcasting. On-selling the rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups would likely net SBS a princely sum from a rival network.
The primary reason for this rather surprising and abrupt shift seems more than likely to be the budget cuts handed down by the Abbott Government, which has forced the network to reassess and shift around its operations. The so-called “efficiency dividend” levelled against the SBS has seen them placed under increasing pressure from Canberra to boost their ratings and, allegedly, lose the “niche” reputation that their programming carries.
SBS is also believed to only be making a token bid to renew the rights to their portion of Champions League matches, meaning that too will most likely fall of their radar.
It’s widely believed that SBS content directors have identified football as an expendable portion of their schedule. Those inside the SBS have been wary and critical of the network’s increasingly corporate-driven attitude, which seems to be pushing for ratings boosts by any means necessary. Government-hired consultants also undertook a round of redundancies that, internally, resonated as being wildly unpopular.
As far as football on free-to-air in Australia goes, the future remains exceedingly uncertain. Channel Seven has secured the rights to the very high-profile upcoming exhibition match featuring Sydney FC and UK giant Tottenham Hotspurs. Whilst Channel Nine secured the rights the impending International Champions Cup – a series of three matches at the MCG in July featuring Real Madrid, A.S. Roma and Manchester City.
But beyond that, unless you’ve got a Foxtel connection, this could loom as a period where Australian soccer’s fire was doused at arguably its hottest ever point.
Photo: Robert Cianflone via Getty Images.
via The Age.
