a-league: a media free kick!

It’s 2021 and you’re CEO of APL, the owner of the A-League soccer tournament. After an epic battle with Football Australia, you have just won independence and are now a club-owned league ready to grow.

You now have to decide who you’ll get your next soccer broadcast rights deal.

One option is your incumbent, long-term media partner, Foxtel, who’s worked with the A-League since it started and built a soccer audience through pay TV and, more recently, Kayo streaming. Foxtel are willing to renew. But they say they want to "maintain cost and valuation discipline." (In other words, not pay too much).

Your other contender for the media deal is US company ViacomCBS, owner of Channel 10.

They want to take an equity stake (putting their skin in the game) and promise a combination of free to air TV cover to get newer fans, plus streaming on their new Paramount+ platform.

Who do you give the deal?

the strategy standoff

Strategy A: Stay with Fox

You could renew your deal with Fox Sports and Kayo. After 16 years this would be your low risk option and keep A-League in front of your existing audience.

However, choosing a pay TV partner would rule out viewing by casual fans, limiting your audience growth right as soccer is becoming popular with juniors and mums.

Strategy B: Kick for Goal

You could go for the Paramount+/Network Ten deal and open the game up to free-to-air viewers. This would expose the league to millions of new eyeballs and an ownership stake would align their interests with yours.

However, this choice would take the code to an unproven new partner and you would need to take the TV production job in house.

answer

so, which did they choose?

Cast your vote to find out!

Do you stay with Foxtel?

Or do you move to free-to-air?

better luck next time, strategy b was chosen!

good job, strategy b was chosen!

But how did this work out for APL...

outcome: facilitator commentary

Matt Braithwaite-Young

Managing Partner

t +61 2 9002 3100

contact matt

Free to Air, Free to Relegate

The APL left Foxtel and went with Paramount+ streaming and Network Ten free to air. The deal began in the 2021-22 season and looked reasonable to start with.

Network Ten promised to broadcast a marquee match on the main free to air channel (10) every Saturday night. But within a single season the games were relegated to secondary channel 10 Bold, due to falling ratings.

The APL also bore the new production costs and fans hated the new broadcast format partly due to technical teething issues but also from the pain they found switching from a familiar commentary format and personalities after 16 years. It was like losing friends.

Fox Sports CEO Patrick Delany, reflected: "While we would have preferred to retain the A-League, we chose to maintain our cost and valuation discipline."

In other words, the A-League got greedy and chased the shiny new platform.

A timely digression…

The NRL (National Rugby League) faces a similar situation to this standoff right now in 2026, with CEO Peter V'Landys pretty much facing the same media dilemma as the APL.

NRL wanted a bid from a streaming giant with deep pockets to push the price up. But Netflix and Amazon have confirmed they won't bid which leaves the NRL on the bench with only two remaining bidders, Channel 9 and DAZN. Importantly, DAZN is the company that recently bought Foxtel. So Peter V’Landys will have the 2021 A-League rights deal in his mind as he stares down the next negotiation.

But back to the beautiful game.

Caught Offside

Choosing the broadcaster with a free-to-air channel and a streaming service must have looked like a good option to the A-League. It would have felt exciting to bet on attracting a high-growth audience right after they had just won their independence from Football Australia.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see the issues. The main assumptions they had wrong were, firstly, how quickly Channel 10 relegated the free-to-air coverage (they had assumed stronger ratings). And, secondly, the lower-than-expected willingness of old Foxtel subscribers to switch to new viewing habits and a new platform.

In other words, their strategy rested on some major assumptions that turned out to be wrong.

Strategies rest on assumptions – what are yours?

When our facilitators support leaders developing strategy, they encourage participants to identify and share assumptions with each other.

This helps leaders identify and understand risks and opportunities, and, more often than not, people make the same assumptions but with different meanings underneath.

One of the most useful things a leadership team can do before committing to a major strategic decision is to label their assumptions and ask: what would have to be true for this to work? The A-League board should have done that.

If you’re interested in finding out how Turning Leaf can help you unlock the power of assumptions mapping and scenario planning to avoid bad choices, call me today.

To find out more, call Matt on +61 2 9002 3100.

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