Seven aims for the kids with new junior AFL commentary team
This weekend, AFL fans in Victoria and West Australia will be able to watch the Western Bulldogs and Richmond clash with in-depth commentary from three of the country’s most interesting new broadcasting talent. The youngest is 11 years old , while the veteran of the group just turned 16.
It’s the inaugural 7AFL Kids Call, an idea that Kirsty Bradmore, Seven’s head of digital sport, says has been in the works for the past 18 months.
Bradmore stresses it was not Seven’s original concept, and that she first encountered the idea in late 2022, when Sky in Germany launched a children’s broadcast for its soccer league. The following year, Formula 1 had success with F1 Kids in the UK, and Bradmore started researching how best to bring it to Australia.
“We just thought there was a great opportunity to try something like this for Aussie Rules,” she tells Mumbrella.
Indie Axup, Cody Weightman, and Ned Bolton
“The game itself, I think, lends itself to having children involved. It was also a broader idea around children’s programming. Generally, children’s programming is presented by children — or presented by adults who are specifically speaking to children — but with sport that doesn’t happen.
“We just have adults essentially speaking to an adult audience, and hope the kids go along with it – or understand it. It just felt like there was a great opportunity for kids to speak to kids, and talk about how they see sport.”
Bradmore admits the idea is “unproven” in our market, but Seven is hopeful of a large audience. She studied the results from Sky Deutschland’s broadcast of the Bundesliga (the country’s premiere football league) and saw that not only did they see a spike in children watching the football through these special broadcasts, but also a large audience of 29- to 40-year-olds.
“Who you assume must be the parents – so, families sitting down to watch the coverage that’s aimed towards children.”
This weekend’s round 15 match up, broadcast on 7plus Sport from 3pm on Sunday June 22, will feature Adelaide’s eleven-year-old wunderkind Alex Kouts, who commentates senior adult matches in his home city; 13-year-old Ned Bolton, son of current St Kilda assistant coach, Brendan Bolton; and 16-year-old Melbournite Indie Axup, who will be doing boundary commentary and interviews with coaches and players from the ground. Seasoned caller Jack Heverin will also be on board to make sure that cordial consumption doesn’t get out of hand.
This weekend’s Kids Call is the first of three planned for the 2025 season, with the second coming in round 19.
“We weren’t confident that we’d be able to do it every week,” Bradmore said, explaining that Seven has purposefully spaced the calls out “to build hype between the matches”.
“It gives us a four-week period to really promote it through our main broadcast, through other sports and just general advertising on the network, so that we can build a bit of hype around it,” she said. “So three this season, and then we’ll see where we go from there.”
This weekend’s Kids Call will be sponsored by Nintendo. As Bradmore points out, aside from bringing a younger demographic to 7plus Sport, the alternative commentaries also open the door to additional sponsorship deals – offsetting a pricey sporting rights deal that carries through until 2031.
“Commercially, you pick up a whole new set of sponsors,” she says. “So from that perspective, it works for the business as well. This is the interesting thing with it: You’ve already paid for the rights, and you’ve got your sponsors sitting on that main coverage. But over on our coverage on 7plus, we’re sponsored by Nintendo, so it’s value-adding to something we already own.”
It’s also a replicable concept, Bradmore explains, should the audience be there. “Put another set of commentators on it, you can sell that to another set of advertisers.”
Last year’s AFL grand final marked the first time Seven had the rights to broadcast live cricket and AFL on its digital platforms.
That summer, it experimented with alternative commentary for its cricket coverage, with different 7Sport feeds offering Hindi commentary for all Australia vs India Test matches, and Big Bash League commentary from the comedic duo The Grade Cricketer, who had built a strong following through its live cricket podcasts.
Bradmore has a very specific vision of how this weekend’s cricket broadcast will play out in sports mad households.
“I don’t know if this is how it will play out, but I really like the idea,” she begins. “Now that we have the digital rights for the AFL and for the cricket, if you’re providing alternate commentary, the idea of adults sitting down and watching our main coverage, and then having kids also in the lounge room with — maybe headphones and their iPad — and they’re watching the exact same game, but it’s pitched directly to them.
“I just think that’s like a crazy concept. And, I hope people embrace it because I think it’s going to be really good.”
And, if it’s successful, the next steps already seem obvious.
“Who knows, maybe we could do a junior commentary for cricket this summer,” Bradmore says.
“I think the world is our oyster on this front.”
The first 7AFL Kids Call: Western Bulldogs v Richmond, airs 3pm AEST on Sunday, June 22 on 7Sport in Victoria and WA. Following the call, highlights from the match will be available on the 7AFL Kids Call Hub on 7plus nationally.
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