TEN is plotting a daring return to AFL broadcasting
after chief Hamish McLennan vowed the network would fight hard to secure more
premium sports rights.
Mr
McLennan said that Ten would push for a carve-up of AFL rights with rival
Seven when new footy boss Gillon McLachlan opens negotiations shortly. The
AFL is understood to be asking for $1.5 billion for its next five-year deal
from 2017-21, after the latest deal with Seven garnered a record $1.258 billion
price tag.
Mr
McLennan pointed to the success of last year’s Cricket Australia deal — in
which Ten broadcast the domestic Twenty20 tournament while Nine retained the
longer forms of the game — as a model that showed sports codes could increase
audience and revenue.
“With
the success of Big Bash and the Sochi Olympics it has shown that live sport
drives premium advertising dollars and strong ratings,’’ he said. “We
are very interested in getting more. We find the idea of getting some games
from the AFL highly appealing.”
It
is believed a carve-up with another free-to-air network is more likely than a
deal with pay-TV broadcaster Foxtel.
“I
think Cricket Australia were the absolute winners out of the competitive
tension between Nine and Ten — it would be the same thing with the AFL,” Mr
McLennan said. “With cricket, two broadcasters competing against each
other brought new ideas, new marketing and a broader audience base. And each
brought new viewers to cricket.’’
A
return to the nation’s highest rating winter sport would bring an end to a five
year hiatus after Ten dropped its AFL rights in 2011, after starting coverage
in 2002. Mr McLennan said shared deals were beneficial to the
AFL.
“We
shared the AFL with Seven in the past. I think it would be fair to assume the
AFL would reach a broader audience, and therefore make more dollars.”
Ten
surprised the market last June when it agreed to pay $100 million for rights to
the Big Bash competition over five years, while Nine paid $450 million for the
Test and one-day series. Despite being the largest deal signed for cricket
broadcast rights, it proved a ratings winner for Ten, under siege after falls
in advertising revenue and viewership. The package delivered Ten its best
start to a year since 2009, averaging 935,000 viewers for the network and its
regional partners.
Mr
McLennan played down talk he would be chasing rugby union’s Super Rugby,
suggesting it was still too much of a niche offering. Matches featuring the Wallabies
— Australia’s rugby union representatives — were a different prospect.
“It
comes down to the price — we might try to carve the Wallabies off (from the
high-rating Australian National Rugby Union rights package), it just depends.”
Ten
would also like to broadcast some National Rugby League games as well.
“The
NRL and AFL are more mainstream which appeals to us,” Mr McLennan said.
"Whilst I live union as a game it doesn't have the broad-based appel that
AFL and NRL have. Nine Network and Foxtel last year paid more than $1 billion
in the latest five-year NRL broadcasting agreement.
Some
analysts argue that deal, teamed with its outlay on cricket, effectively ruled
Nine out of AFL rights discussions, leaving Ten in a prime position to slug it
out with Seven.
Mr
McLennan made criticisms of Tennis Australia last year when it failed to put
Australian Open rights out to an open market for a bidding war. “I think they
did themselves out of money,’’ he adds but despite the boost to ratings from
the Big Bash and Sochi Olympics over summer, Ten ratings plummeted in March and
April as a result of TBL and SYTYCDA failing to perform for most of its season.
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