Here’s a breakdown of how Football Australia’s new rights deal will work.
Fresh off the back of hosting one of the most successful Women’s World Cups in history, Australian football’s governing body has secured a ground-breaking rights package which will see a re-shape of domestic and international coverage.
How Football Australia’s new broadcast deal will work
FA is looking to centralise its content for broadcast
According to a report in the Australian Financial Review, Football Australia’s 2025-2028 broadcast package sees the governing body secure the broadcast rights for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup from FIFA, through a deal with global sports company IMG for an undisclosed fee.
In addition to the next edition of the Women’s World Cup, the broadcast package will also offer access to the AFC Asian Men’s Cup in 2026, and the women’s version of the tournament a year later, as well as qualifiers and friendlies for both the Socceroos and Matildas.
The package will also include AFC Asian youth tournaments and the FIFA under 20s and under 17s Women’s World Cups, as well as the rights for a soon-to-launch national domestic second-tier competition and potential docu-series opportunities for both national footballing teams.
Football Australia chief executive, James Johnson, brandished the deal as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity [that] may not come around again soon.” The deal effectively means the governing body, not FIFA, has control over distribution of the broadcasting rights, something rarely seen on these shores.
In essence, it means Football Australia can dictate which broadcaster, or broadcasters, can screen these competitions, meaning matches and related content can be shown on free-to-air, such as on SBS, or through a paywalled streaming site, such as Paramount Plus, or both.
“It’s effectively the first time in history that one broadcaster or several broadcasters can own – through one access point – exclusive Matilda’s content for the whole cycle, and exclusive Socceroos content for the whole cycle except for the Men’s World Cup,” Mr Johnson explained.
Australian football’s broadcasting landscape is fragmented, to say the least. Domestically, a five-year, $200 million deal which began in the 2021-22 season means Paramount is the broadcast partner of the Men’s and Women’s A-Leagues, as well as access to Matildas and Socceroos friendlies and matches.
Network seven was the free-to-air broadcaster of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, SBS shared the Men’s edition of the tournament at the end of last year, while Stan Sport is the Australian home of the UEFA Champions League, amongst others, and Optus Sport broadcasts the Premier League, La Liga, as well as this year’s Women’s World Cup.
Bit to follow, hey? It means consumers are confused and haemorrhaging money to watch the sport they love across multiple channels. It’s something Mr Johnson wants to do away with.
“The intention is to really centralise a fragmented market and make it good for the consumer and good for the broadcaster.”
Following a domestic winter where, despite ultra-competitive NRL and AFL seasons, football – the nation’s sport – and the Matildas were the hottest ticket in town, it appears the deal is attempting to leverage off the fanfare generated by the Matildas’ semi-final run.
As Mr Johnson noted, the deal is set against an incredibly fragmented domestic football viewing backdrop, with the A-League Men and Women scarcely available on free-to-air TV, with viewers of said leagues forced to fork out hefty subscription fees for a product which is far from its best.
What it means is that Australian football’s governing body, who should at the very least have the game’s best interest and progression at heart, will have total control over broadcast rights for the Matildas and other selected sides and competitions. Meaning at least they hold the power to make a considered decision about which broadcaster aligns with the needs and wants.
In essence, and an ideal world, it would mean the Matildas, the Socceroos (for select matches), national youth sides, and clubs competition in the highly anticipated national second division, would have their matches shown on a broadcaster who will do everything in their power to spotlight the beautiful game on domestic, much like how SBS and Fox Sports used to do it.
At a time when the game is crying out for love it deserves given the Herculean feats of our two national sides at recent World Cups, and with both current and former Socceroos coaches questioning football’s place in the national psyche, nailing this broadcast deal is paramount for the game.
It will give football a much needed, adequately amplified voice in a sea of sporting noise that has drowned the game for the entirety of its Australian history.
As Graham Arnold put it this week; “And we’re playing in a world sport, and we don’t get anywhere near the resources or the help that sport [AFL] does.”
“Whether you can believe that or not, we do not have a home of football. When the Socceroos come to Sydney to train, we have to train on a rugby league field where they remove the posts and put soccer posts up, that is the truth,” he added
“We are the highest participation sport at grassroots and don’t have a home of football at all.”
His words built on comments made by current high-flying Tottenham Hotspur and former Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou, who insisted the Matildas’ success will not change Australian football’s fortunes – even if the opening round of this year’s A-League Women’s season was record breaking.
“When you look at what the Matildas did at the World Cup: unbelievable,” Postecoglou said. “But you still will not see an influx of resources to the game. You will not, I guarantee it.”
“If I can compare that to a country like Japan who also have the tyranny of distance – and baseball’s pretty strong – they plant a lot of resources into football and you can see that that’s making an impact,” he said. “I don’t see Australia down that road.”
Against this setting of doubt about football’s prospects in Australia, the magnitude of Football Australia’s decision cannot be understated. The governing body’s new broadcast deal is a clear declaration that if support will not come from outside the game, at least it exists within it.
It is a bold, brave decision; the kind of ballsy, back yourself, us-against-them attitude that the game needs at a time when attendances, and the game’s stature, are dwindling.
For both A-League competitions, the inclusion of the national second division in the deal could be a signal of hope that, after years of bouncing around various homes like a stray dog unable to find the perfect fit, there might be some help in the future from Football Australia in securing the perfect broadcaster to return the domestic game to status it held in the early-to-mid 2010s.
With the Paramount deal set to expire one-year after the beginning of the new rights package, and with whispers already that an early exit from the agreement may be on the cards, it remains an exciting time for the future of football broadcasting in the country.
Whether it be through a single broadcaster, or an arrangement between two, many football fans would have their own opinions on who their preferred home of Australian football is.
Regardless of what channel or platform the game ends up on, this broadcasting deal is a sign for Australian fans of the beautiful game that the sport’s governing body has its best interests at heart.
