Ten set to unveil 24-hour sports channel

[blueandblack]

Foxtel is half owned by News Corp, part/whole funder of Super 14. Thus they will want to keep broadcasting "in house" unless they get a payment substantially more than any amount they might lose through allowing an FTA channel to broadcast 'their' content.

[blueandblack]

http://www.tencorporate.com.au/libra...ber%202008.pdf

[LarryNJ]

at probably less cost than the basic (non-sports) foxtel cost here too.

damn you!

It's not cheap. About $130/month HD Cable with a DVR, internet, & 2 phone lines with unlimited calls in US & Canada.

[shasta]

It's not cheap. About $130/month HD Cable with a DVR, internet, & 2 phone lines with unlimited calls in US & Canada.

That's cheap, Larry. Costs me about $135 for one phone line and basic SD Fox plus the sports package without internet, including only unlimited calls in my local area. That's after a 10% discount for bundling a couple of cell phones too.

Why does that seppo who runs Telstra get a $13 million paycheck for providing such a lousy service?

[jargan83]

because by time his paycheck gets through the exchange rate at the moment he is only on about $22.50 an hour
Posted via Mobile Device

[LarryNJ]

Because you all put up with that kind of service.
Posted via Mobile Device

[shasta]

Because you all put up with that kind of service.
Posted via Mobile Device

Errrrm, no we don't, where we have choice. I got that drift from some of your posts about other things like stadium projects too Larry, that you reckon we get what we settle for over here. Things like economies of scale and small populations in a vast country have an effect on our choices by limiting the number of corporations wanting to invest in infrastructure. That's just a fact of living here.

Just for comparison, how much would a season ticket for one of those NFL stadiums cost, for how many home games? If I couldn't afford that are they live on cable for your $130 or are they pay per view?

[frontrow]

Maybe a dedicated channel could also offer to broadcast a re-invented ARC like rugby competition as sole broadcaster, certain to attract the rugby starved fans pre or post season....What about that idea????????

[blueandblack]

...
Just for comparison, how much would a season ticket for one of those NFL stadiums cost, for how many home games? If I couldn't afford that are they live on cable for your $130 or are they pay per view?

Different game, but baseball is in the low to mid thousands (mind you 80 odd home games). a $US3000 season membership is, per game, just under what we pay per game for Force home games.

[gustafsl]

Just for comparison, how much would a season ticket for one of those NFL stadiums cost, for how many home games? If I couldn't afford that are they live on cable for your $130 or are they pay per view?

From my understanding the cost of tickets would vary quite a bit depending on each city. I did a tour of the stadium in Green Bay when I was there in 2001. At that time there was something like 60,000 season tickets and 120,000 people on the waiting list and the turnover of tickets was like 20 a year, you can even leave your spot on the waiting list to someone in your will. Meaning your great great grand children might get season tickets if you are on the list now. So Green Bay easily sells out every game, yet they are known to be one of the poorest teams in the league, and if it weren't for revenue sharing they wouldn't survive. So the only reason I can think of is that their tickets must be cheaper because the city isn't that wealthy.

I looked up the tickets for New England Patriots (pretty much the best team in the last eight years). And their best seats go for $169 a game. Probably a bit cheaper if you buy it as a season ticket. But for only 10 games (8 regular + 2 exhibition) a year that is just over a $1500.

As for on TV....the general schedule is 1 Sunday night game, 1 Monday night game and the rest are split between Sunday 1pm and Sunday 4pm (eastern time). Sometimes they have Thursday night or Saturday night games, but not often. Everyone in the country will get on free TV either (1 game at 1pm and 2 games at 4pm) or (2 games at 1pm and 1 game at 4pm). Plus I think the Sunday night and Monday night are on free TV as well.

So pretty much everyone gets at least 5 games (out of 14-16 games per week, depending on bye weeks) free on TV. If you live in (near) a city that has a team and they do not sell out the home game you get one less game on TV.

There is a package you can buy through satellite that you would get every game on TV each week. I think it's about $150 for the season (it was around that price to order it when I lived in Canada). But in the US only like 30% of people can actually get that satellite company at their house, so a lot of people couldn't even get it if they wanted.

[shasta]

From my understanding the cost of tickets would vary quite a bit depending on each city............................... But in the US only like 30% of people can actually get that satellite company at their house, so a lot of people couldn't even get it if they wanted.

Thanks for that explains a few things for me. We are not so badly off by comparison, unless you follow Rugby, League or Soccer and live in WA, SA or Tas and can't afford Fox.

[gustafsl]

Thanks for that explains a few things for me. We are not so badly off by comparison, unless you follow Rugby, League or Soccer and live in WA, SA or Tas and can't afford Fox.

Yeah for AFL we are pretty similar in terms of number of games on free etc...but the thing that shits people off and something that they would not put up with in the US is games being shown delayed. We don't get Friday night footy in SA until like 8:30pm, the game is already half over by that time. I can understand when they delay the Crows and Power games to try and get more people to go to the game, but to delay interstate games, so that the oldies don't miss out on Better Homes and Gardens is a joke.

As you said though, for any other sport unless you are in NSW, ACT or Queensland you are screwed. I think part of the problem is that we only have the three (not counting ABC and SBS) free to air channels. So they have to fit in all the US tv, plus some australian crap, so sport isn't given much of a go. It's all a bit of a catch 22 right now though. The networks won't put stuff on unless people are going to watch it. And if you are a Rugby fan, you really have no choice but to get Fox. So you are unlikely to watch the game on free to air.

It would be interesting to see what the ratings were for the England vs Wallabies game, it was not on Fox so everyone had to turn to free to air. Sure it was a crap time, but the ratings for that would be a better indicator than the games earlier in the year that were delayed like 5 hours and shown on Fox.

[LarryNJ]

Errrrm, no we don't, where we have choice. I got that drift from some of your posts about other things like stadium projects too Larry, that you reckon we get what we settle for over here. Things like economies of scale and small populations in a vast country have an effect on our choices by limiting the number of corporations wanting to invest in infrastructure. That's just a fact of living here.

Just for comparison, how much would a season ticket for one of those NFL stadiums cost, for how many home games? If I couldn't afford that are they live on cable for your $130 or are they pay per view?

I do understand that it's your only choice Shasta. I was simply making a quick comment following Jargans reply. It wasn't long ago that we only had the choice of one cable company just like you. Now there is more competition, you can get TV & high speed internet from the cable company, a couple of phone companys and several satellite companys. So obviously they are going to give you better service or you simply choose another company to do business with.

Gustafsl was very accurate in his post. The average NFL ticket is probably about $75 or so and you have 8 home games + 2 preseason games you must buy. So about $750 for a season ticket. Over the last few years many new stadiums would also charge a one time PSL Personal Seat License fee. That was anywhere from $1500 to $10,000+ for that you have the right to buy the season tickets every year. The great thing about it is if you want to give up your seat the PSL is yours to sell at any price you can. With many teams having 10+ year waiting list you can easily sell that PSL for 5 times + what you paid for it. A much better return than the stock market! The PSL's help to pay for the stadiums but most of the teams revenue comes from TV contracts. They are huge and 95% of the games are on free TV.

Now the stadium issue you were more correct in your read of my thoughts. I admire the passion that many on this site have had in their fight. They are doing alot more than I ever would and won't accept "That's just a fact of living here" excuse. On the other hand I laugh at others who believe the excuses that the politicians are telling you why they can't and how they feel it would actually be a win to upgrade MES. From the little I know about the issue I would think an upgrade to MES is not a win and that in years to come the politicians will have many more excuses why they can't build a new stadium but very few why they should.

[gustafsl]

There are two big problems here.

1) teams are not privately owned and
2) there are not enough big events

Since the teams are not privately owned there is no big source of money to invest in new stadiums. I'm sure the government would be quicker to throw in some money if a rich owner was paying for say 50% of the cost plus was going to pay back the government for their share. Which means that most stadiums would need to be built by the government. Which brings us to problem 2.

Without enough big events the government does not see the stadium being worth it. Look at the stadium in Arizona, cost $500 million. But the Cardinals generate $150 million for the Arizona economy every year and the Fiesta bowl alone (1 game) generates another $140 million. Add in all the other events that would be held in the stadium and it wouldn't take long for the government, through taxes on all that economic activity, to make a profit on the stadium. But we just don't have those size of events here to make that kind of money out of a stadium. Sure a few more people might go to Force and Glory games, they may even get a Wallaby game or two out of it, but it isn't even going to come close to paying for the stadium and in 30 years time we'll need a new one.

I'm not saying we shouldn't get stadiums, because the benefit goes beyond the dollar figures...just commenting on why we don't get them.

[jargan83]

I was simply making a quick comment following Jargans reply.

My attempt at humour regarding thie Aussie dollar