Phoenix Ownership - Rob says FTFFA

Andrew Dewhurst's contribution to the Phoenix Licence extension debate.

Well worth a read.

TV Deal – yes, I think there might be more money there somewhere. Not a huge amount more but maybe some more. And I would love to see SKY Sport do more around the league. I have been commentating Phoenix games for some years now and through all of that time I have been pushing for more local content, a weekly football show, one that highlights the Phoenix, its players, its personalities and work being done off the park. Feed the fans, promote the A-League and increase viewing numbers. I will continue to push that case for as long as I am calling games. I would work on such a show for nothing, I have offered to do some of the leg work to get it up and running, to go and find sponsors and work on a format, all (so far) to no avail.

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Great website Enzo

very good read. 

If it wasn't for the Nix, FFA wouldn't get ANY money from Sky.

An all-Aussie 10 team A-League would get the same TV deal from Fox as they currently pay so in reality the Nix is providing more to the FFA in TV revenue than any of the other clubs!

He's travelling in SE Asia. Currently in Laos I believe.

An all Aussie 9 team league.  So reduce the value by 20% of the Fox deal (for this season - more or less for others).  There have been no other viable Aus bidders to replace the Phoenix at any point in the league's history despite what hte low IQ morons on the 442 forums will tell you.

Not something I have said often, but here goes - Good job Andrew Dewhurst.

That;s what I don't understand.  Surely the idiots there realise that it's a 10 team league not because the FFA has looked around the world and decided that is the optimum number for a country's top professional league (and therefor the Phoenix are keeping true blue Aussie's out of the league), it's because there aren't any other vialble options.  The FFA would take a 12 team league to Fox in a heartbeat if they can find the clubs/owners to get them there.

Yep, I just mentioned a 10 team all Aussie league just to point out to those numpties that even if they magicked up another team from somewhere, FFA still wouldn't benefit as much as having the Nix as the 10th team.

An excellent article from Andrew Dewhurst. I recall he also wrote a great article after the All Whites won the supreme award at the Halberg Awards and  after "Dick" Head Taylor had resigned from the selection panel stating that the All Whites had not won anything.

Andrew pointed out that Taylor was the then Chairman of the Canterbury Rugby Supporters Club ( The province which has a sheep as its mascot) and  that Taylor could save face with his Rugby cronies by saying how he dealt to the "soccer poofters"

From Dewy's post: "TV Deal – yes, I think there might be more money there somewhere. Not a huge amount more but maybe some more. And I would love to see SKY Sport do more around the league. I have been commentating Phoenix games for some years now and through all of that time I have been pushing for more local content, a weekly football show, one that highlights the Phoenix, its players, its personalities and work being done off the park. Feed the fans, promote the A-League and increase viewing numbers. I will continue to push that case for as long as I am calling games. I would work on such a show for nothing, I have offered to do some of the leg work to get it up and running, to go and find sponsors and work on a format, all (so far) to no avail."

Why not suggest to SKY TV that they should consider using Prime TV for such show, as they own the channel anyway?

Even the highlights show on a free to air would be better than on Sky Sport at 11pm.  That would grow the croud and give them a better supply of subscribers to the Sky Sports for the actual games coverage.

I'm not sure the arguments above are seeing it as FFA will be seeing it.

FFA would be opening negotiations with something like:

Every game other than Nix games brings two sets of Australian audiences, one from each side.  That's double the value to Australian advertisers on Fox and doubles the Fox subscription interest relative to a Phoenix game.  Fox gets no value from the NZ audience as Sky are playing their own adds and collecting their own subscription revenues.

Welnix, you can have the Sky A-League license payments, less a contribution to A-League overheads.  That gives you full value for the NZ advertising audience and pay TV subscriptions that you are adding to the League.  It's pitiful and not worth our time, you can haggle directly with Sky.  But we are reducing your share of the Fox revenues to half what the Australian based sides get, because your games are only worth half to our broadcaster.

I am pretty sure that FFA could drop the 'Nix, loose our 27 games, have less hassles with difficult time slots for Aussie viewing, not have the administrative overhead of dealing with the Asian Federation and FIFA and not loose much Fox revenue, after saving the payout to Nix from Fox revenues at present.  Unless we deliver better Sky revenues we must be marginal to them.  They loose 10% of the games but those games are only worth 5% of the audience for Fox so wouldn't reduce their payments to FFA much and FFA then save on their payments to us.  And other clubs reduce travel costs.

The Breakers and Warriors would face the same issue but I expect the Sky deals for those teams would be very much more lucrative to the NBL and NRL than 'Nix brings to FFA through Sky.  Both those teams have Auckland and wider national support.  Nix less so.

Of course it could be as simple as Sky's audience numbers are too low because most of you guys watch all the games on pirated streams ;)

I'm not suggesting that they are about to kick us out.  But I think it's not so much of a no-brainer that Nix stay in the competition as people think.  I'd at the very least expect them to be engaging strongly with Welnix on how to grow the NZ Sky TV revenues, and how to get greater NZ wide television audiences and revenues.  Particularly before they handed over a long term license agreement and agreed to continue the same level of payments to Welnix as the other clubs, which are largely based on Fox Australia audience ratings.

Your math is bad. People still watch the nix in Australia, fox gets value out of those games. You can't halve the 10% just because they don't get NZ viewers - none of the other games fox screen get NZ viewers either. 

IIRC the nix gets viewer ratings similar to CCM and jets games, which means fox gets similar value from the nix without the cost of having to broadcast half of the nix games. 

As for value to the FFA, if you assign a dollar value of the fox deal pro-rata based on viewing figures, then add in the sky deal money, the Phoenix contribute more financially than both CCM and the jets. 

I watched the game last night and I watch as many games as I can so Sky are getting their monies worth. I think they under estimate how many of us there really is. Having a show like Dewhurst suggests would be great and belp promote the game and audience - if Sky really were interested in gaining watchers. Very supportive  of Dewhurst on this.

Don't think they'd be saying that. Sounds more like Fox talking to the FFA, if it's even true. 

So much this.

Although we know that FFA and Welnix have met, we do not know what is being said between Lowy and Domey.

What we do know is that Cockerill and Slater have been constantly bagging 'Nix in other media where they have guest columns etc., despite being also on payroll of Fox as commentators and panellists. I have not seen a disclosure footer in any of their articles regarding that.

My guess is that Fox sees a new Australian entry to HAL as likely to bring more revenue to them than keeping Nix in.  But these of course are not the only alternatives. Adding two more financially viable Australian mainland sides to HAL would be a win-win situation, without us being seen as dispensable.

I do not honestly see our football as likely to prosper (at least short-term) without taking part in HAL. But I do not see HAL as interested in ditching us unless FFA is running into some new headwind at AFC, which I have not heard about so far.

From what I understand of sports broadcasting the key to it is the broadcaster being able to deliver live sport to its customers across the widest time span possible.  Take the NRL for example, two games on Friday nights (the second starting right after the first one finishes), then 3 live games one after the other on Saturday, 2 on Sunday afternoon and another on Monday night.  The warriors fit in to that plan nicely because the time difference allows them to offer live sport in a timeslot that would be difficult to fill with a game played in Australia.

I would have thought that is a large part of how the Phoenix fits in to the A-League, not so much about croud numbers, because TV rights are worth way more than gate takings.  However that appears not to be the case so the whole thing has got me confused

The math is a bit on the pessimistic side, sure.  But not out of the ballpark.  Some Aussies are going to watch all games in a round, so Nix/Fox will pick up some viewers from that, but most are going to watch their team's game and maybe one or two other matches.  But you can't ignore that we are not bringing a decent TV audience and revenues.  Our games on Fox must get substantially less watching overall from Aus viewers, because, mainly, only one set of Aus fans is involved.

If you are correct we are getting similar Fox viewer ratings to CCM and Jets, that's positive, to a limited extent. I'd ask if that applies to this year when we are top 4, nearly top 2 or over all seasons.  And FFA is, for sure, going to have less problem subsidising those Aus sides out of overall Fox revs, than subsidising the Nix.

If Sky revenues are as poor as we are led to believe then why would FFA be happy to give Welnix a full 100% share of the distribution to clubs which is basically financed out of Fox revenues.  Sure you can argue for better than my 50%, but it's a haggle.  And it's a haggle that may apply for many years with a long term licence extension on the table.

Just sayin.  Don't like it, but you have to wonder why we've not clinched a deal yet. 

Maybe Welnix are being asked to accept less in some proportion to Sky revs vs Fox revs.

I'm more than happy if I've got this wrong, but why still no deal?

The challenge to Welnix is then to somehow increase the watchers on Sky and the revs from there or other TV provider.  FFA can only be expected to do so much.  You'd expect NZF to also get involved if they have the brains to see the value of Nix to NZF.  But I've just listened to the podcast so that sounds fudgeed.

Also need to take into account ratings for time slots. We aren't given prime time slots, not sure if CCM and Newcastle are either. So it depends if FOX are happy for the ratings on the time slots we play in. 

The league also is egalitarian on its distribution of revenue. MV and SFC would most likely get far more of the revenue as they probably drive greater value for sponsors and media rights than other clubs, but that is not how the league is setup. The revenue is split evenly across the league. 

I would also say that the FFA should be expected to do more, sure Welnix need to promote the 'Nix but the HAL is FFA's product and could do more promoting and building that product in NZ - the FFA should be doing more with SKY to do so. You won't have an individual McDonald's franchisee promoting the McDonald's brand across the country. 

A couple of points.

1, The FFA spend millions promoting the A-League in New South Wales.  The budget for NZ promotion is WAY under 10k.  Any promotion you see for the Phoenix or the A-League is funded by the Phoenix (or Sky).

2, Elements of NZF appear to have a current mindset that sees the Phoenix as rivals rather than partners.  Twits.

I thought the love-in between Martin and Gareth fixed that? Weenix in ASBP one of the obvious outcomes. Nixling/Weenix Auckland setting up perhaps another - or are they competing with NZF FTC "product" for players, like Wynrs, Ole?

Having NZ as an additional market is also presumably factored into the amount of money competition sponsors like Hyundai are willing to pay too

Strong rumours of an Auckland school that may or may not have links to the new U17 coaches setting up a rival set up to the WeeNix/Scots college set up and pressure being applied as to where players should go.

Also a general impression that the Auckland Football elite are having issues with so much of what is good in Football being done here and their influence being eroded.

NZ soccer/football shooting itself in the foot. Who'd have thought.

same shark as usual then. 

LEFT SHARK!!

Auckland Football Elite should set-up a professional club then. Maybe than are not that Elite enough that they can pull something off, much easier bitching.

With the carrot presumably being players are "in the mix" for U17 selection every 2 years? How short sighted is that, compared to professional club environment?

If true, that is all kinds of fudgeing stupid. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face

Have not learned anything in 40 years.

Enough talent?  Questionable.

More than one option is fine as long as there is no suggestion that attending one gives you a greater chance for representative selection than another.

Hand me a Tui!
NZF have already shown their bias to date in this U17 cycle by excluding players from one well known academy.

Rumour that Phoenix could have a licence extension confirmed by the end of the season.

Are you working for GCSB or DomPost now?

Any sauce with that?

Balls or GTFO