Brands and media jostle for position as the siren sounds on a new AFL season

They don’t call AFL ‘Australia’s game’ for nothing.

At the Melbourne Cricket Ground tonight, the traditional face-off between Richmond Tigers and Carlton Blues will set the 2023 AFL season in motion. With round one’s ticket sales already 224% above the same period in 2019 at the beginning of March, the match tonight will mark the return of Australia’s most sought-after sporting platform.

For the competition itself, auto brand Toyota remains the premier sponsor, having extended its partnership with the AFL to 20 seasons until 2023. Meanwhile, Asahi Beverages, OMO Australia and NAB are among those who renewed or signed up for sponsorships in the past 12 months.

But the league’s desirability is also demonstrated by brands’ demand around everything on its periphery. While its partners like brodcasters Seven West Media and Foxtel (TV), alongside SCA’s Triple M and Nine’s 3AW (radio) have already announced their slews of sponsors, activities outside the core broadcast schedule like documentaries and podcasts also attracted commercial attention. And then there is all the club-related sponsorship across its 18 teams.

Seven: building for growth

Speaking to Mumbrella about opportunities around Seven’s AFL platforms this season, the company’s head of sport sales, Rob Maclean, says one offering lies at the heart of its proposition: “We put brands in front of fans, wherever they choose to watch”.

Seven’s head of sport sales, Rob Maclean

For now, Seven generally show games on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday live, either on its primary channel or multichannel 7Mate, depending on the viewer’s location. It also shows the Brownlow Medal, all AFL Finals and has the Grand Final exclusively. Meanwhile, Foxtel has five or six games exclusively depending on whether there’s a Thursday game and bye rounds.

Maclean points out that the network has the capacity to sell inventory for Seven-produced games on Foxtel and Kayo, which connects brands with “the full audience potential”.

“Whilst we’ve seen a lot of fluidity, and obviously the composition and shape of the audience, and the way fans are engaging with content is changing … there is nowhere that we can’t connect brands with AFL fans that are watching footy.”

This complements Seven’s offering on its own platforms, which Maclean says is already “built for growth”.

As settled in the record-breaking $4.5 billion AFL deal last year, Seven will have digital rights to the AFL games for the first time in 2025.

While the AFL Grand Final in 2022 didn’t bring in the linear audiences of previous years, it was still as once again one of the most watched live programs on Australian TV in 2022, with 2.179 million metro viewers tuning in for the 2:30pm match. It also brought in 95,000 viewers on streaming for Seven.

Maclean says the network has already gotten a head start on digital rights with its products in market.

L-R: Seven’s AFL commentary team, James Brayshaw, Daisy Pearce, and Brian Taylor

“Footy is already one of the most popular genres on our 7Plus platform in terms of minutes consumed for footy-related content, and that’s without the live streaming in the mix,” he says.

“What we’re looking to do is very much prime our product and revamp our AFL Hub on 7Plus right now. So we’re not waiting for 2025 … we want to ensure that we are the destination for footy fans.”

Maclean adds that there are different parts to this strategy, including fast channels, a new match centre on 7News.com.au, and continued investment into its use of social media platforms. But by the time 2025 rolls around, the network will be able to offer more dynamic advertising experiences enabled by geotargeting, multiview, watch parties and augmented reality.

“As it comes to the short-term, looking at that now, there’s some of the pieces that we’re looking to build in place,” Maclean says.

“It [the AFL] is the number one code. It connects with more women, more light viewers, more under 40s, and really dominates from a reach perspective versus anything else across winter.

“They [brands] love to partner with us, and as they think about the journey out to 2031, they know that we’re heavily invested in this sport, we have a will and desire to grow the game.

“They recognise that it presents an opportunity for them to be a part of it, to strengthen our relationship and partnership together, and be a part of something with longevity that will ultimately deliver better brand health outcomes.”

Foxtel: exploring more commercial avenues

Having just caught up with Mumbrella on the NRL earlier this month, Foxtel’s sports sales and brand partnerships director, Martin Medcraf, expresses a similarly positive sentiment ahead of the AFL season.

Foxtel’s sports sales and brand partnerships director, Martin Medcraf

As its sports streaming platform, Kayo, leverages these two main winter codes, March and April mark the months where the platform pushes marketing and subscriptions the hardest.

On how Foxtel benefits from the code’s presence, Medcraf says: “AFL games have four quarters, instead of two halves, as well as a 20-minute halftime, which means brands have more breaks in which to reach their audience.

“Foxtel services also broadcast nine AFL games a week. With each game running for roughly three hours, that’s 27 hours of match coverage a week, plus another seven hours of pre and post-game shows.

“Collectively, that’s a fair bit of content. This is what passionate footy fans want, and we’re here to deliver.”

He says there has been no lack of interest from brands for the code: “The thirst and demand for premium live sports has never been so strong. We have 19 high-profile brands sponsoring the season, including 4 new brands joining the line-up (Bunnings, KIA, Menulog & Wild Turkey).

“McCain are joining for a second year as a naming rights partner and will feature bespoke commercial break bumpers coupled with deeper integration opportunities across Fox Footy.”

For commercial opportunities after 2025, he adds that Foxtel is also “exploring many avenues”.

“Firstly, the first eight rounds of our Foxtel exclusive Saturday night games will soon be open to commercial opportunities, as will the first 15 rounds of our exclusive Saturday night Victoria games.

“Additionally, the migration of AFLW to the end of the year will mean that passionate footy fans will be watching AFL coverage from early March, all the way to the end of November.”

Media buyers: Same, same, but different 

For this year, while there hasn’t really been any new commercial offering of note, buyers acknowledge that it’s not necessarily a bad thing as the code’s platform is well-established.

Following Seven’s acquisition of Prime Media Group, the buying experience with the AFL has been further streamlined.

Reigning champion Geelong Cats in the 2023 AFL pre-season. Source: Geelong Cats

Initiative Melbourne’s head of partnerships, Justin Arlt, says the AFL’s longevity plays into part of its appeal.

“It has presence in market for almost eight months. You do have quite a lot of games, so there’s just a lot more opportunities to get brands out there in front of eyeballs,” he says.

“I think broadly, we’re confident that over the course of the season, it will absolutely do what it needs to do, which I think probably highlights why AFL is a really safe sporting property.

“Whereas Australian Open, for example, goes over two weeks, and if things don’t go as planned, it can be a bit more challenging to make it up.”

Head of commercial at Half Dome, Paul Wilkinson, says while this year’s ad offering around the AFL has been “in keeping with what we’ve seen in the past”, the code still “has a really broad audience that can’t be denied”.

“It’s largely 50/50 in terms of audience split. It covers pretty much all age ranges. It’s heartland Australia. It’s a very powerful platform, I’ll never take that away from it,” he says.

“But just like the NRL, you’ve got certain states where it’s much stronger than others. So for that southern end of the country – brilliant. When you start moving into Sydney and Brisbane, they obviously lack a level of interest.”

“We got to take account of that when we’re doing it [formulating the mix].”

L-R: Justin Arlt, Paul Wilkinson and Marelle Salib

OMD’s national head of trading, Marelle Salib, adds that codes like the AFL is great for brands who want to tap into a “passion point”.

“Sport engages like no other area for large sections of society. The commercials have become increasingly complex and difficult to navigate, coupled with multiple brand sponsors trying to differentiate themselves, create a high-risk/high-reward scenario.

“Now more than ever it is critical for brands to bring in specialist capability to maximise value potential through strategy and partnership, as getting it wrong can be one of the most expensive mistakes a brand can make.”

With changes in broadcast rights from 2025 on their radar, Arlt says “most agency people will be just sitting and observing” to get an understanding of impacts on clients.

Wilkinson adds that it’ll be interesting to see the cost of Seven’s digital rights and whether the timing might even be too late.

“It’s a judgment call. The problem, I suppose, is that people are paying for Kayo. If they’re paying, it is unlikely, in my opinion, that they’re going to drop that and move to watch it on 7Plus,” he says

“They didn’t get Kayo just for the AFL. They got Kayo because they love sports … that takes a lot of eyeballs away from the free-to-air side of things.

“Seven has given up the first eight rounds [in the new arrangement], so they’re now exclusive to Foxtel.

“Are they going to lose out in that? We’ll find out in two years, I guess. But I think that’d be a consideration for everybody when they’re going into those negotiations.”

More than just consumers 

While the AFL is undoubtedly one of Australia’s biggest consumer-facing platforms, for some, it also plays into their business-to-business or B2B marketing plans.

With 18 teams, 23 rounds, and 5 states, the competition offers plenty of opportunity for corporate hospitality.

The ability to bring clients to games sealed the deal for Carsales in its new partnership with 2022 season runners-up the Sydney Swans.

Carsales, managing director Australia, Paul Barlow told Mumbrella that despite being in the market for 26 years and headquartered in AFL heartland – Carsales has only now made its foray into AFL sponsorship via the Sydney Swans.

“We have a really good presence in Melbourne with the [Melbourne] Storm,  but we think we can get good brand recognition with the Swans, both within Sydney but then also the broader AFL population as well,” he explains.

Swans CEO Tom Harley and Paul Barlow Photo by Phil Hillyard

And while growing its brand and audience with the general population is one of the aims of this deal, for Barlow, strengthening relationships with partners and clients is also important when looking at a marketing partnership.

“We our take our B2B marketing as an important part of what we do – a big component of this partnership is B2B,” he says.

“The B2B activations that we can do with the Swans is really appealing. They are really forthcoming with those options – we have already discussed a lot of ideas. Melbourne Storm was the first partnership we did and we learnt a lot about that in terms of how to get the B2B activation, and how to align with the leadership.“