Might provide some certainty to plan next season as consisting of:
- finishing off this season, including playoffs, in Oct-Nov;
- followed immediately by next season reduced to a 22 game 2x round robin (assuming there are still 12 clubs including the new Sydney team able to take part) + play-offs, starting in December.
Highly unlikely, I know, but is the best outcome I can imagine happening.
Here’s another scenario: 2020 calendar year is scrapped. Next season to be played is winter 2021. Foxtel cover games only in Sydney and Melbourne, due to smaller deal agreed and to save costs.
WU, CCM, Jets, MacArthur fall over.
14 team league:
5 Sydney regional clubs - Sydney, WSW, Marconi, Sydney Olympic, Wollongong Wolves
5 Melbourne clubs - Victory, Melbourne City, South Melbourne, Bentleigh Greens, Melbourne Knights
Perth, Adelaide, Roar, Nix (based in Sydney due to ongoing international travel uncertainty)
Definitely a worse case outlook.
Football's point of difference for Foxtel, is it gives them content over the summer, when they really need it.
It's all guess work, but I'd be really surprised if they was no A League in some form, at all in the remainder of 2020. That would pretty much mean that the state borders remain closed for the rest of the year, which seems a bit extreme. Once the state borders are reopened, there will be pushes to start up sport behind closed doors.