The Roar
The Roar

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Reviewing Australian sport's online presence

1st June, 2015
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1st June, 2015
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From time to time I like to enjoy the odd WWE wrestling match, especially when I get to see some of my favourite wrestlers from my childhood going toe to toe.

Recently while I was browsing Netflix I noticed that a number of WWE compilations of classic matches have been uploaded to the video streaming site. This got me thinking about something the WWE has done that no other sporting organisation in the world has done as yet; established their own subscription-on-demand website in which subscribers can stream thousands of hours of live and historic footage.

The creation of the WWE Network hasn’t been without its hurdles. It has seen the WWE alienate itself from a number of major cable providers, and has failed to achieve the targeted number of subscribers, but it is still in its infancy and appears to be growing in number as more and more casual fans subscribe.

The issue of providing online content is especially pertinent for the Australian sporting codes. If you look closely at the different sporting competitions around the world, the Australian competitions are far, far behind.

The NFL allows subscribers to watch full matches from the current season all the way back to 2009. It provides Coaches Film, the video package that every club receives from the NFL every Tuesday morning of the previous week’s matches, and features a live stream of the NFL Network, the NFL owned and run television channel.

The NHL provides every match of the current year as well as selected classic matches to subscribers. The American NBA and MLB subscription services provide every match of the current season while the NBA also provides a number of historic matches to Australian subscribers.

On top of this, all four competitions feature a considerable number of documentaries, playoff matches and All Star games available for purchase on iTunes.

Interestingly, the English Premier League, perhaps the largest football competition in the world, does not allow fans to purchase a subscription direct from the EPL website. Instead fans must be subscribers to Sky Sports to access matches online.

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In contrast to the American organisations, the amount of Australian sporting content available online is very limited. Fans of both the AFL and NRL can subscribe to watch every match of the current season online. Cricket fans can also subscribe to Live Pass, a service that offers streaming for all domestic and international cricket played in Australia as well as selected Australian overseas tours.

And that’s it. There is no subscription option for football fans without Foxtel looking to legally watch A-League matches online, and the options for rugby union supporters are limited but rather interesting. I’ll get to them later.

If you’re an international AFL fan, things are a bit brighter however. The AFL offers a subscription service known as the Watch AFL Global Pass to people living outside Australia that is more comprehensive than any other service in Australian sport.

Fans who pay the weekly, monthly or annual subscription get access to all live AFL matches, on-demand access to every match of the current season and Watch 24/7, a 24 hour live channel featuring classic matches, player interviews and panel discussions. This is an incredibly far-reaching service that many Australian fans would love if they were able to access the service.

On top of the limited domestic streaming options, there is absolutely nothing available for purchase on iTunes for any Australian sport. If a Dragons’ fan wants to relive the highs of the 2010 Premiership season, they must either seek it out in a brick and mortar shop or search for the DVD online, order it, wait a week or two for it to be delivered, and then put the disc into the DVD player. That’s if they own a DVD player or computer with a CD drive. Fans are not able to easily access NRL or AFL produced videos online. This shows a distinct lack of foresight on the Australian sporting competitions’ behalf.

Within the next five to ten years the DVD and Blu-Ray will go the way of the VHS, they will become obsolete. Sporting organisations need to plan for the future and cater for changing consumer needs and wants. Demand for subscription-on-demand has risen exponentially around the world in the past few years. It is the way of the future, and the NRL, AFL, FFA and ARU all need to cater for this.

All it takes is a little bit of foresight to realise why this is important. Firstly is the fact that it opens up a number of extra revenue streams. This should be of least importance to the sporting organisations but, as we know, the NRL is currently driven by money, so if they are to expand their online presence it will be driven by increased revenue opportunities.

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Secondly, and most importantly, is the fact that it opens the sport up to new markets while also fending off sports entering the Australian market. It is no secret that the world is shrinking technologically, and sports with an open-minded approach will thrive in the future. That is why the NFL is trying so hard to expand into London. Yes, there is money there, but they also know of the benefits of expanding the sport.

Rugby league is not the only sport that New South Welshmen can watch during winter now. There are a number of sports around the world that are available to them thanks to the internet, on top of increased competition from the AFL. These are the fans that the NRL can’t afford to lose, those fans who are happy to switch their allegiances to baseball. Instead of paying $50 a month, minimum, to Foxtel to watch live NRL or subscribe to NRL Digital Pass, they will pay $25 a month direct to the MLB to watch every Major League Baseball match live and on-demand.

The sporting landscape in Australia has permanently shifted. The sooner the Australian sporting bodies realise that, the better. The NRL isn’t just competing against the AFL anymore, it is competing against competitions from all around the world. That is why both the content on the field, and online content, must be accessible and of a high quality.

The Foxtel model of pay-tv is largely outdated. With the rise of subscription on demand streaming services, such as Netflix, Stan and Presto, there will be more and more people willing to cut their Foxtel subscription. This should be seen as both a threat and an opportunity.

The threat lies in the fact that the percentage of Foxtel users keeping their subscription purely to watch sport will rise in the near future. It may become unfeasible to keep Foxtel just for sport, and as a result they will stop subscribing. When this happens, rugby and football especially will lose a huge portion of there viewers. Casual fans who watch a sport just because it’s on will be lost.

The opportunity lies in the fact that a number of fans who have cut their Foxtel subscription will be looking for a WWE Network-style service to fill the void. However, it is a tough market. Fans will only pay for a subscription service if they feel the service is worth it. Fans will likely only choose one sport, and they have numerous sports to choose from from around the world. The NRL, or AFL, or whomever it may be must endeavour to be the best in the world, not just the best in Sydney or the best in Melbourne.

Speaking of accessible content, one of the most accessible video streaming sites in the world, if not the most accessible site, is YouTube. Everyone is familiar with YouTube and everyone uses it. Anyone can upload videos and anyone can watch them. It is a service that has been exploited by a number of fringe sports in Australia, with full videos of competitions and live streams uploaded to the site.

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One particular sport that makes full use of the accessibility and ubiquity of YouTube is athletics. It is a fringe sport in Australia and does not have a significant television contract with any major free to air network. The only time it receives widespread coverage in the media is during major international events, the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, or when an Australian wins a medal at World Championships. It’s not often. However, there are a lot of athletics fans wanting to watch the events held during the Australian summer. These are live streamed on YouTube, and the full videos are then uploaded to the site. Not only are major competitions such as the Sydney Track Classic uploaded to YouTube, but also junior athletic championships. This is where things get interesting.

Obviously the NRL won’t be live streaming an NRL match on YouTube, but there is a lot of scope to live stream junior matches, Holden Cup, Harold Mathews and S.G. Ball competitions. There are plenty of rugby league nuts out there who would love to watch these matches to scout the up and coming stars of the sport. Providing these fans with such accessible content is the key to ensure they remain fans in the long term.

Live streaming is something that the AFL does far better than the NRL. While the primary rugby league feeder competitions, the QRL Queensland Cup and the VB NSW Cup, have no YouTube presence and no streams on their website, the AFL feeder competitions, such as the NEAFL, SANFL and VFL, either upload full matches to YouTube or provide links to other websites providing live streams.

Why provide all this content? Because there are a number of different types of sporting fans. There are the casual fans who are the ones typically targeted by media campaigns, and are the most lucrative fans to organisations. Then there are the hardcore, rusted on fans, the fans who can’t be forgotten, but too often are. They are often willing to pay money to watch their sport of choice and have an insatiable appetite. Sporting organisations need to make sure that they target all types of fans with strategies that match their desires.

This is exactly what the WWE has done with the WWE Network. The WWE took a punt with the network by attempting to target to separate groups of fans through the one product. Firstly, they attempted to target the hardcore fans by putting their every WWE-related wrestling desire in the one place. They knew that these fans would be willing to pay just $9.99 a month to watch their favourite ‘sport’, and that if they provided this content, they will reap the benefits financially.

The second group of fans the WWE is attempting to target through the WWE Network is those casual fans that want to experience a bit of nostalgia and watch their childhood heroes, while also watching the monthly pay-per-views. The fans that are now in their twenties and thirties who grew up during perhaps the greatest era of wrestling history, the Monday Night Wars. I won’t bore you with the details but in short, there were two competing wrestling organisations that both aired on Monday nights in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As a result, they went hammer-and-tongs to provide the best possible content to draw the viewer in. Ultimately Vince McMahon and the WWE won, and all that content is now available on the network.

The coverage provided on the WWE Network is unprecedented. Every WWE, WCW and ECW pay-per-view is available to watch on demand, there is a channel featuring 24 hours of scheduled programming, every pay-per-view event is available live and free, and there are a number of network-only series aired. The hope is that casual fans will be drawn in by the nostalgia.

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I earlier mentioned the interesting scenario surrounding online content of rugby union. There are no subscription services for Wallabies Tests and Super Rugby, and the Super Rugby competition remains as inaccessible as ever. However, there are a small number of people who upload a large number of Test matches and domestic matches from around the globe to YouTube. It’s interesting that World Rugby, any national body, or SANZAR has not removed these matches from YouTube, citing copyright infringements. I don’t know enough about the copyright rules surrounding rugby content, but it is very noteworthy that the governing bodies are allowing such content on YouTube, yet aren’t ensuring that they are the ones providing it.

There is of course one fly in the ointment that is likely preventing such an online sporting utopia from being launched just yet. TV networks and rights agreements. Firstly, in terms of current online rights, in both the AFL and NRL television rights agreements, Telstra has purchased the ability to broadcast online matches. Purchasing and developing the capital required to provide such a service is very costly, so I can understand why the bodies chose to on sell the rights. However both the NRL and AFL are preparing to start negotiating their next TV deal, and expanding the online services is something that should come up.

Unlike the NRL and AFL, the ARU recently agreed to a new broadcast rights deal, and it seems like a big missed opportunity as there has been no mention of any sort of online service in the reports about the new deal.

Another concern surrounding rights agreements and preventing the NRL and AFL from creating a WWE Network style channel is the fact that they will likely diminish the value of broadcast agreements. Fox Sports pay a lot of money for exclusive broadcast rights for football, rugby union, league and AFL. If the sporting organisations choose to go it alone, Fox Sports may no longer be willing to pay such large sums of money if it means people stop subscribing to Foxtel.

However, in the long term, sporting organisations must weigh up whether revenue from subscription fees will eventually dwarf revenue from TV rights. If this is the case, and I think it is, it’s time to start preparing for this outcome.

Finally, the muddled ownership history of the NRL lies as a final stumbling block for such a network. But amazingly, the NRL has actually been proactive for once and dug deep into their pockets over the past decade. While they didn’t previously own historic NSWRL and QRL footage, they have invested considerable amounts of money to digitalise every old reel of footage that they have.

They did this because they realised that the old films were starting to deteriorate, and within a few years they would be completely unplayable. Hours and hours of classic rugby league moments lost, never to be seen again. Thankfully they realised that this footage must be saved and invested the money necessary to save the films.

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As a result of this investment, the NRL now has every match on file on a computer, which NRL staff members can access on request. Additionally, when the ARL Commission came into place they gained full ownership of these films. On top of this, from what I can understand from talking with former NRL staff who worked on the situation, the NRL does not charge Fox Sports to use this footage and broadcast classic matches. Rather, by purchasing the rights to live matches, the NRL simply allows Fox Sports to use the footage.

This has numerous implications for the introduction of an NRL subscription on demand network. The NRL owns the footage so it will not be difficult to create a Netflix-style database of classic matches that can be watched on demand, especially given the films have already been digitalised.

Interestingly, it appears as though Fox Sports is sensing that change is on the way and have decided to proactively jump in before the sports mobilise. They have recently announced the launch of a new Apple TV application, Fox Sports Now. It isn’t entirely comprehensive, there is no live match content, and AFL matches aren’t included, but the app is a good starting point. I can guarantee you that Fox Sports will seek the rights to broadcast matches live during upcoming rights negotiations.

It is a very smart move for Fox Sports in that they are countering the major problem associated with Foxtel right now. Foxtel sells you ten channels of rubbish for every channel that you actually want, and they charge you for those ten channels. Until very recently this was the only option for those who wanted that one channel. As a result, numerous sports fans were forced to pay for the whole Foxtel subscription. As I mentioned earlier, these fans are starting to develop other options, and many will seek to cut their subscription in the coming years.

Wisely, Fox Sports has recognised this and decided to provide a service that will eventually allow fans to cut their Foxtel subscription while remaining customers of Fox Sports. At the moment, Fox Sports Now charges subscribers $4.99 a week to watch replays 12 hours after matches end. Fox Sports will certainly seek to expand this service, and sports fans will have a choice to make.

Let’s look into our crystal ball and look 10 years into the future. The AFL, NRL, ARU and FFA all provide individual subscription services for their individual sport. Fox Sports provides a subscription service that features all four sports plus American sport, EPL, La Liga and cricket. It is obvious who wins this situation: Fox Sports.

It will be up to the organisations to ensure that such a future doesn’t occur, or to ensure that they benefit from such a situation. Fox Sports should be congratulated for being proactive, and sporting organisations should be starting to get a bit nervous.

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