Fox Sports welcomes Tim Cahill as A-League broadcast negotations continue

Fox Sports has commenced promotion for the upcoming A-League season releasing a teaser trailer focused on the homecoming of star player Tim Cahill.

Both Fox Sports and Football Federation Australia (FFA) are betting big that the arrival of Cahill will reinvigorate the domestic football competition that has struggled to build audiences in recent years and is facing stiff competition from crickets Big Bash.

It’s a crucial period for the FFA which is hoping to double the revenue it receives for A-League broadcast rights while also increasing exposure for the sport by getting more games on free-to-air Television.

The current broadcast deal still has 12 months to run with SBS holding simulcast rights for the Friday night game.

SBS moved the A-League to the SBS2 multichannel in 2015 after the sport failed attract a significant audience on the main channel. A move that infuriated FFA officials.

Under the terms of the current agreement, Fox Sports has an exclusive time period to negotiate a new deal with the FFA until September 30th. If successful Fox Sports would then likely negotiate to on-sell simulcast rights for Friday and Saturday night games to an FTA broadcaster, most likely TEN.

However with the September 30 deadline approaching, it’s now increasing looking like FFA will delay negotiations until next month so that it can deal with Free to Air networks directly, and potentially set up a lucrative bidding war between Fox Sports and Optus .

The 2016-17 A-League season commences October 7