The broadcast deal between SBS and the Australian Championship only runs for two years, but it could have longer term impacts to the wider Australian Football media ecosystem. The next two years serve as a critical testing ground not just for the competition product itself but also for building relationships between the media and domestic football.

Competition Opportunity in the FA’s hands

The first opportunity for the partnership is the development of the competition itself. Unfortunately the two year deal hampers this development somewhat and relegates the current arrangement to a testing phase. The development of the Australian Championship is wholly dependent on the FA’s intentions for the competition as SBS will have to re-evaluate their commitment based on the future nature of the competition. A home and away season, winter season, summer season, expansion, longer term commitment or even dissolution are all possibilities, and as such will change the business case of the broadcast.

This dynamic is of critical importance to South as the current deal only offer the club short term security to develop its on and off-field operations. The club should be cautious of over-investment in the case the competition does not continue to season three. The club should also consider its role in agitating for longer term security and what that form that takes. If interest in the first season is high does that suggest the club should stick with the current format or lobby for a Home and Away expansion?

Adding dimension to Australian Football conversations

The second opportunity for the partnership though is certainly more immediate, and that’s the fact the Australian Championship adds another dimension to all football discussions. NPL commentators are now talking about football in other states, A-League commentators are now talking about the competition’s talent pool, and fans generally are connecting professional game with the grassroots in their conversations like never before. Curiously, the competition conversations has largely been about football as the national nature of the inaugural season has tempered mind-numbing expansion conversations and the form of club qualification has largely muted conversations about crowds.

For South, this has been a great dynamic. The club’s recent signings have come from both A-League clubs* and other NPL clubs which has generated heaps of exposure across all football platforms. Interstate and national outlets are discussing the club – critically – in a football sense, rather than from fantasist expansion or ethnic identity perspectives.  But this has also been a great bridge from within South too. Fans on our forums are discussing the A-League -also critically – from a football sense, rather than from an isolationist or critical perspective. There’s a curiosity about players, coaches, teams from interstate and even higher quality friendlies being set up between A-League and Championship clubs. The new competitions has added a dimension and built bridges.

Expanding the media ecosystem grows exposure for all

So now we’ve discussed the impacts to the narratives that the media is able to present but what about the impact to the media itself? Well for many years now domestic football in Australia has been broadcast pretty much exclusively by Paramount and Network Ten. SBS’s re-entry into the market marks an important diversification opportunity for the FA and fans. Firstly, another invested network will significantly increase coverage and commentary of the game at all levels. For example, domestic football can now be expected to be a priority of two national news bulletins across Ten and SBS. In addition cross-product commentary will increase. SBS will improve A-League reporting by virtue of connections to the Championship (though transfers, personal histories, interactions in the Australia Cup) and Ten will increase conversations of the lower tiers as well. It’s a strange situation – adding SBS to Ten is a little like One plus One equals Three!

For South the club can expect to be discussed nationally even more, not just on SBS but on Ten too. If the club wants to maximise this dynamic it could look to increase engagement with Ten (i.e. access to Lakeside to film) and target transfers or loans with A-League clubs which double as promotional opportunities.

A better home for different competitions

The SBS deal also represents the first time in many years that the FA has trusted an Australian football product outside of the Paramount Network – with the exception of FIFA tournaments outside of their control. Paramount has done a great job professionally presenting A-League and National Team broadcasts but secondary competitions have not been able to find clearer space on their network. AFC Youth Competitions and the Australia Cup have often failed to be presented in an accessible and marketed way, the later was even broadcast on YouTube this season after struggling on Ten Play previously.

It’s clear that it’s simply too much football for Paramount to manage, and also that the variety of football products require a variety of approaches to reach the right market. SBS serves as a potential home for these secondary competitions, and potentially for even more. The Australia Cup would complement the Australian Championship rights very well, and the Youth National Teams’ games would complement SBS’s existing FIFA rights. Moreso… just as Seven and Nine broadcast State Level Australian Rules and Rugby League competitions, the FA (if they are smart) could look to get SBS to broadcast an NPL ‘match of the week’ on Saturday Afternoons during the winter.

NPL + Australian Championship + Australia Cup would offer SBS year round domestic football, and the nature of those products would allow for lower broadcast investment to make the broadcasts commercially feasible, a combination that fits extremely well on the SBS platform which already broadcasts grassroots sports on its platforms. Imagine a Super Saturday year round on SBS, back to back games with a World Game style panel discussing the local game each week! Even just a transfer of one game per week per state onto SBS on Demand could offer an economical way to partner between domestic football and SBS! For South this could provide the club with year round coverage on a national network.

SBS can push Paramount to improve

SBS’s entry to the ecosystem will almost certainly push Paramount to consider their existing offering and improve. The simplest way this will happen is by expanding the talent pool. A new suite of producers, presenters and commentators will be expected to join the SBS team, and as such could provide Ten a chance to poach talent or mix their current pool. Differences in presentation or marketing style tested by SBS could also offer Paramount examples to improve, whether it’s replicating lessons from SBS’s oncoming social media content or news features.

SBS offers an opportunity for South’s own media team to add to their resumes, and any new platform to step up should also encourage the club to broaden their volunteer base.

SBS offers a point of distribution diversification

Now in terms of marketing, Paramount has some serious limitations in their media ecosystem especially in comparisons to Nine and Seven. Unlike those broadcasters, Paramount does not have radio, print or even strong internet presence in Australian, this significantly limits their ability to cross-promote the A-League. Even within its TV offering there are major limitations. Ten has failed to establish strong strip programming (like Sunrise/Today or A Current Affair/Home and Away) and the regular programming it does have has far smaller audiences than comparable ones on other networks (Ten News rates 1/3 of Seven and Nine’s bulletins). Numbers aside though, this means Ten fails to create habitual viewers who have deep awareness of their broader product offerings, seriously hampering their ability to launch new shows and cross-promote the A-League.

So a bit of history here… Ten were once the most profitable network in Australia – but they never had the biggest audiences! Why? Ten reacted quickly to social trends and created high volume, lower unit cost shows targeted specifically at younger demographics that advertisers spent more on. But when young people stopped watching TV, Ten was hit the hardest. Nine and Seven focus on total ratings, big and broad shows that thrive on establishing habit, and have much stickier (but older on average audiences).

SBS offers a smaller television market to Ten (by a long way), but interestingly it’s overall reach is harder to compare by virtue of SBS’s more complete media network. SBS operates Australia’s best free streaming service with over 12 million (yes, 12 million!) accounts. SBS has multiple radio stations which dedicated audiences by virtue of the niche non-English content. SBS has significant online presence, generating hundreds of articles daily across dozens of languages. The audiences of these individual programs may be small, but in combination the reach is huge:

• SBS on Demand has over 12m users, 10 Play has over 7m
• SBS has 2.4m Facebook likes, Channel 10 has 2m
• SBS News has 1.9m Facebook likes, 10 News has 670k
• SBS Sport has 1.2m Faacebook likes, 10 Sport has 141k

This is huge for the Australian Championship, but also for FA. Despite having smaller audiences on individual programs, SBS has a larger reach than Network 10 across its network. This has been a limiting factor for the A-League, but could be a point of advantage for the Australian Championship.

South needs to recognise this in it marketing. It shouldn’t just spruik national television audiences, the truth is, these will be small. What it should spruit and pivot to is multimedia strategies that leverage SBS’s online presence, audio content that can be played through the SBS radio and podcast network and interviews that can be published on SBS’s written platforms.

Conclusion

Considering the benefits of the above the FA should prioritise the long term viability of the Australian Championship as a mechanism to build the relationship with SBS. Broadening the domestic football media ecosystem offers huge benefits to the game, particularly for smaller products that allow for lower broadcast investment.