Can we start a campaign to get AFL off Foxtel?

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What people forget is that there was never a time when all games were on FTA, in fact I can remember a time when all you got was the Friday night game on delay, a Saturday arvo game replayed on Sat night with highlights of the other games, and the Sunday game.

If Foxtel weren't allowed to show footy then you wouldn't get more games on FTA you would miss out on being able to see the games that are currently on Foxtel.
 
You'd think the AFL would have enough integrity to put aside the $$$ and grow the game by setting up their own steaming service where we would could get full HD AFL for x amount per month.
$2.5 Billion is a hell of a lot of money to set aside....
Its hilarious when people on foxtel try to justify paying $50 per month for content. Its ridiculously overpriced.
Its necessary in Melbourne if you want to watch your team every week.
 
There are any number of ways of accessing live games.

Telstra customers get them bandwidth free on their phones.

Telstra TV

AFL app on your phone if you want to pay $80 / yr

Foxtel sat/cable

Foxtel play (internet)

And god forbid some games on 7. :-(
 
If you listen to Joe Hockey and others Liberals, they vilify Australians who cannot enter the property market as wasting their money, such as on buying cups of coffee. What would they say about a Foxtel subscription?

The opinion piece in todays Age talked about the disturbing trend of corporate capitalism in Australia and the US, referencing concerns admitted to recently by the highly conservative and free market biased journal The Economist (UK).

Everywhere you turn these days you have to put your hand in your pocket to participate.


We all now have to pay much much more for our gas bills - for OUR gas! - because corporations with the "rights" to mine our gas have only very recently started to export our gas overseas, mainly to China, and so we are now in competition with another customer/marketplace overseas for our gas. We should be paying exactly as much as it costs to get our gas out of the ground and bring it to our homes, and not a cent more.

And what should be our game is increasingly becoming to feel like a corporate enterprise that treats us only as customers and further bullies us into conceding our rights and entitlements because supporters have no power. What self-evident and unalienable rights do the fans have anymore?

But the truth is we do have the power, and the moral high ground, if we organize. It might not have to be the campaign that the OP suggested, but I think we have to start thinking in those terms.

It is not Foxtel that provides all the great money to the modern game, it is the supporter who pays for their subscriptions and who also cover Foxtel's cut of profits. Foxtel needs the AFL as much or more than the AFL needs foxtel. If the NBN ever works then the AFL may soon be their own broadcaster, selling directly to the public, to us. We will be their only negotiating partner if that happens.

Do fans audit the spending and the wastage of the games money at AFL house? No. Do the media, who are complicit, lodge freedom of information requests on our behalf to view the records of the corporate credit cards used by AFL executives? No, the media just make jokes about AFL house flying to China first class last fortnight.

Flexible pricing was not removed because of fan disenfranchisement, like the AFL claim, but because it was unworkable. And Rohan Connoly thinks its being reintroduced surreptitiously in a different form.

Night Grand Final = not wanted by the majority, but being pushed for by Channel 7.

Preferential access to GF tickets, for loyal supporters, should be a right.

Bring back Sat Arvo games on Delay on free to air. The lack of a FTA game on Saturday afternoon has changed the feeling of the footy weekend in Melbourne. It sucks.

If it is culturally acceptable for the players to organise and seek respect from the AFL, then it is about time the fans found their voice too.

It is not only about getting value for our money, money, money, or about improving the enjoyment of the game; it is also about getting rid of that sick feeling I increasingly get that I am being lied to, treated like an idiot, treated as a rent payer for a service that the AFL think they are providing me, feeling like the AFL are constantly experimenting to see how much they can monetise the AFL as a product before they hit a downturn in profits because the number of renters start to drop.

And we need a campaign to get the VFL back on ABC.
 

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Foxtel is the best thing that happened to AFL. What would you prefer, pay $10 per match for online streaming?
 
Its hilarious when people on foxtel try to justify paying $50 per month for content. Its ridiculously overpriced.
$600 a year really isn't that much if you love your footy, plus you get some decent channels on the side as well. Don't complain about FTA if you don't want to spend to upgrade.
 
If a working adult wants to pay for foxtel, they can. I personally don't think it's a competitive product and would never pay for it.

But kids don't have an income, and the afl would want every kid in the country to be able to watch their team play every week.

The current setup probably works best, maximum income without completely losing FTA coverage.
 
I'm actually surprised they're being so nice and leaving so much money on the table by not going with a full pay model, like the rest of the world has with pretty much all live sport.
If they did that watch channel 9 air way more NRL games in Melbourne and after 5-10 years NRL starts getting bigger than AFL
 
If a working adult wants to pay for foxtel, they can. I personally don't think it's a competitive product and would never pay for it.

But kids don't have an income, and the afl would want every kid in the country to be able to watch their team play every week.

The current setup probably works best, maximum income without completely losing FTA coverage.
Kids don't have an income? Oh please. How do they eat or pay the mortgage?
 
I assume when people say they want all games off Foxtel they mean all games off Foxtel and $250m per year less in TV rights going to the AFL, no?

I think Foxtel's business model is outdated and they are suffering from Netflix, Stan providing some competition but they still fork out big dollars for AFL broadcast rights and other live sports - most of which FTA broadcasters aren't even interested in.

The last time Channel 7 held all right rights they paid $40m per year. The 2017-2022 deal is worth $418m. Channel 7 can't afford that and wouldn't pay it if they could. They don't want to broadcast 9 games a round live. They've been dragged kicking and screaming into HD in 2017 because of Foxtel's superior coverage.

Maybe footy would be better off if the AFL weren't chasing bigger and bigger TV rights deals, but you can't have it both ways. If we go back to Channel 7 1990s broadcasting (Riiiiight on the tip of my tongue....) then a LOT of money disappears from the game. Games broadcast on two hour delay either side of the news or shown for the first time at 10.30 on Saturday night, Terry Wheeler, Peter McKenna and Ian Robertson in commentary, hell they might even bring back the Mega Wall..
 

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Can we start a campaign to get AFL off Foxtel?

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