Is this the end of free-to-air fandom?
AFL, cricket, NRL - no code is immune. As sports games disappear behind paywalls, Adrian Cosstick, head of strategy at Half Dome, argues the cost of watching your team is rising, and the long-term health of fandom is at risk.
Capitalism is good at many things. Leaving a patch of grass for everyone to enjoy? Not one of them.
The ‘tragedy of the commons,’ coined by ecologist Garrett Hardin, describes how self-interest can destroy shared resources. Everyone thinks, ‘we’re just letting one more cow onto the field,’ until the grass is barren.
Sport is fast becoming that overgrazed pasture. What was once a shared, accessible part of national culture is being carved into smaller, pricier fragments.
A mix of streaming wars, commercial interest and advertising demand has brought us here. It’s a future where the business of sport risks eroding both its cultural value and its grassroots foundations over the long term. The more fragmented and commercialised the experience becomes, the more we risk losing the shared moments and local connections that make sport fandom so special.
The US offers a preview of what the future looks like and it looks like Australia is now on that same path. Sports fans are being progressively asked to pay more, jump through more hoops, and accept a new reality where watching your team is no longer simple, or cheap.
In the US, watching every NFL game now costs fans close to $2,500 per season. This is a result of rights scattered across numerous different platforms — CBS, ESPN, Amazon Prime, YouTube TV, Netflix, and more. This isn’t a cautionary tale — it’s a crystal ball.
Australia’s own fragmentation is already underway
Turn on any Aussie code and you’ll see the same cracks forming. AFL is split between Channel 7 and Foxtel’s Kayo with Saturday games now behind a subscription. Cricket is divided across Channel 7, Foxtel, and Amazon Prime. Football will be strewn across Stan Sport, Paramount+, and others.
Never one to be outdone by the AFL, the NRL will be hellbent on oneupping their archrivals with a bigger rights deal. With their current deal ending in 2027, NRL execs are already in the US shopping the code to global streamers. Two new teams mean a ninth game for every full round — a fresh slice of inventory that looks tailor-made for a streaming deal. Get ready for Monday night footy behind a paywall.
When rights are fragmented, reach suffers and cultural relevance starts to erode. For all the talk about maximising revenue, it’s the long-term impact on fandom that might soon be keeping broadcasters and codes up at night.
The media buyer’s paradox
In the short term, fragmentation can work really well for advertisers, which is one of the key drivers of these ever-changing sport rights deals.
Streaming platforms are chasing sports rights to acquire and retain subscribers, which creates more ad inventory in the process. It means more brands can tap into premium sport without locking in expensive, multi-year deals. For advertisers focused on short-term sales, this is attractive as it opens up new audiences and new opportunities at scale.
But what happens if too many doors open?
In advertising, we often talk about ‘the long and the short of it’ — the need to drive results now while building sustainable demand for the future.
Sport’s value lies in its live, communal nature and the power to reach people in real time and en masse. If audiences splinter across platforms, advertising costs rise and viewership starts to flatten, making the whole proposition less attractive to everyone. This could also have a long-term effect on the fan base, which will ultimately make it harder to justify premium media rates.
It risks becoming an instant sugar hit that ultimately eats away at the long-term health of the codes.
The grassroots safety net: if fragmentation eats away at fandom, who is replenishing it?
If the codes are squeezing the golden goose for returns, they need to be putting even more back into grassroots and fandom.
Thankfully, leading codes do have an eye to the future. Cricket Australia’s Grassroots Cricket Fund (a joint effort with the Australian Cricketers’ Association) has committed $30 million to supporting local clubs and facilities. The AFL has pledged $1 billion over the next decade to strengthen grassroots football participation, which is also supported by their expansion club strategy that goes beyond market growth to deepen the game’s cultural and geographic footprint. Beyond strengthening the cultural and geographic footprint of the game, it also encourages more membership applications and creates new local heroes and new pathways for kids in previously underserved regions.
These efforts are important because if young fans can’t access all the games on free-to-air and local clubs fade, families may begin to opt out of organised sport altogether.
Fandom doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built through access, habit, and local connection — in backyards, schoolyards, and weekend games at the local club. If that disappears, we’re not just losing viewers. We’re weakening sport foundations in Australia.
So what’s next?
The horse has bolted, so it’s unlikely we’ll return to a purely free-to-air model. However, sporting codes, media owners, and advertisers still have a responsibility to make access simpler and not harder.
Bundled sport subscriptions. Highlights and replays that are free and widely available. Free-to-air minimums baked into every rights deal. Transparent reinvestment into community pathways. These should be the new table stakes. We also need to avoid decisions like the NFL and Netflix Christmas Day Game deal, which put the game behind a paywall. That’s gatekeeping a cultural moment.
And if 10-year-olds are more interested in watching Fortnite streams, then maybe the next generation of fandom is better served by the codes looking beyond traditional streaming platforms. An innovative approach could see Australian codes tap into Fortnite with player skins, team guernseys, and signature emotes like goal celebrations and umpire or fan calls (BALL!). Like the NFL and NBA, this builds fandom with younger players. Beyond cosmetics, there could even be a place for broadcast extensions in the not-too-distant future. Games or highlights could stream inside a custom Fortnite island, turning viewership into a more immersive digital experience.
What we need is a balance where codes can still maximise commercial outcomes and safeguard future participation. Where advertisers can reach mass audiences and help sustain the ecosystem. And where fans new and old aren’t constantly forced to weigh passion against their wallet.
The AFL’s new tournament: rights deal or driving fan engagement?
Which brings us to the AFL’s proposed in-season tournament.
As an AFL diehard, I think it’s an innovative idea that adds some drama to the season. A new format gives fans something fresh and shortening the regular season so every team plays each other once helps address the fixture imbalance. But with streaming giants locked in a monthly battle to keep Australians subscribed, it raises an obvious question: is this really about fans or future rights?
If you’re a sport with a $4.5 billion rights deal and increasing pressure to deliver more opportunity to partners and advertisers, inventing new inventory is a smart commercial strategy. A standalone tournament gives you something fresh to sell. More games, more storylines, more sizzle for sponsors and streamers.
Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Innovation drives growth, and if it helps improve the game’s reach and relevance, then everyone wins. But it’s only a win if access remains broad, not walled behind another subscription. And only if the revenue is put back into building fans and growing the game into new markets.
Otherwise, it’s just another cow on the field.
Adrian Cosstick is head of strategy at Half Dome.
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Within the anti-siphoning list, it calls out that each match in the AFL and each match in the NRL should be available free to the general public. I am not sure about you but I don’t believe Foxtel is free to the general public, is it?
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You’ve missed the part about legislation being in place protecting what you’re talking about from actually happening. Until that angry farmer stops blocking the gate, the grass will remain relatively free.
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Broadcasting Services (Anti-Siphoning List) Instrument 2024
https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2024L01655/asmade/text
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My understanding is it only covers first dibs to FTA networks (asking price too high) and a new tournament (mid season comp) or fixture like a Monday night game might fall outside the anti-siphoning list.
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Case Study #1 – Super Rugby
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My understanding of the anti-syphoning law is it allows FTA first right of refusal and a reasonable opportunity to negotiate a deal and little else.
I didn’t include this in my article (how long is a piece of string) but gambling ads are likely to be restricted further in the near future so there will be more commercial pressure on broadcast deals moving forward. I can’t see a future where streaming platforms aren’t more involved.
The other grey area is it only covers what is listed. Is a new AFL mid-season competition an unlisted event?
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The legislation protects first right of refusal not a FTA guarantee
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