Seven shrugs off missing matches as AFL kicks off
This week, the most fiercely-contended AFL season in history launches - and that's just the off-field action. For the first time, Foxtel and Seven are locked in a head-to-head battle for viewers across linear and digital.
Tonight, Seven is entering year one of the biggest TV rights deal in Australian sporting history with the AFL kickoff.
But this is no simple rights-make-might situation. Seven and Foxtel have a split deal worth a combined $4.5 billion over seven years. In carving up the big cost, both networks lost significant bragging rights and ensured a messy situation for viewers.
Not surprisingly, both networks are focused on what they have gained.
Seven has digital broadcast rights for the first time ever, meaning they can now offer streaming AFL for free to the estimated 69% of Australians who access TV via the internet.
Seven’s head of AFL and sport innovation Gary O’Keeffe tells Mumbrella that “to finally get the digital rights is so important.”
“No matter where you are, it’s the first time Australians can get their football on any device, wherever they are, for free,” he says. “We haven’t had that before, and that’s a real game changer.”
Angus Ross, Seven’s group managing director of television, echoed this sentiment when speaking to Mumbrella last year, saying Seven had “one hand tied behind our back” with their AFL coverage restricted to aerial-using viewers only.
“It’s a really radical game changer for us,” he said. “We’re also big believers in Australians’ right to have access to free sport.”
7 Days of Footy. Presented at Seven’s 2025 Upfront last November.
The right to free sport is a sticking point.
In the new rights deal, Foxtel has snared the exclusive live rights to all Saturday games for the first eight rounds nationwide, and — more crucially — for the entire 2025 season in the key AFL markets of Melbourne and Tasmania.
In short, AFL tragics in Victoria may be able to stream for free for most of the week – but they will have to shell out for Foxtel or Kayo Sports if they want to watch live footy on a Saturday.
Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany told Mumbrella last month “Australians are very used to paying for sport”, a comment that raised the ire of Free TV CEO Bridget Fair, who described the new broadcast deal as a “land grab”.
Fox Footy general manager Mick Neill told Mumbrella in November, when the deal was announced, that it had been a long-time coming.
“There was a lot of people who put all the time and effort into securing the best rights we could get for Foxtel and for Kayo,” Neill says.
“And we’re just stoked with the outcome. We think we can provide fans with a really great experience on Saturdays. It’ll be the place to be. It’s got to be a big focus of what we do this year – and it’ll be bigger and better and longer and more exciting than ever.”
Fox Footy will have exclusive live rights to Saturday games
To that end, Foxtel will include bespoke commentary and graphics for every game for the first time, and will wrap the coverage under the same Super Saturday banner it has successfully used for its NRL coverage.
But according to Seven’s O’Keeffe, Saturdays aren’t even the biggest drawcard of the weekly AFL calendar.
“Obviously we’d like to have all night games,” he says. To compensate, the network has leaned into Thursday nights, upping last year’s 12-match schedule to 23 games.
“The fans have spoken over the last few years,” he says. “Thursday nights, from a straight ratings point of view — and a commercial perspective — are no doubt stronger than Saturday nights.
“When we were doing Thursday nights last year and Saturday nights, Thursday nights, far out-rated Saturday night football.”
O’Keeffe says “if you’re playing Thursday night or Friday night football, you’re box office, you’re one of the big teams.”
Sunday afternoons are also “so important from a commercial point of view, because that leads into our news, then our light entertainment schedule on a Sunday night.”
Seven is filling the AFL-sized hole in its Saturday schedule by bringing the local VFL match-of-the-week off the bench and into its 7pm Saturday slot.
“Grassroots football is really important to us here at Seven,” he explains. “State footy is going prime time.”
The AFL season starts tonight, on Seven and Foxtel.
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