The full consequences to fans of V8 Supercars’ new media rights deal won’t be known for some time, with the category non-commital on the extent of its continued free-to-air presence.
The $241 million, six-year agreement between V8 Supercars, Fox Sports and the Ten Network was announced on Wednesday, well ahead of its 2015 start date.
The surprise switch came despite an increased bid from incumbent free-to-air network Seven, and largely brought with it more questions than answers.
While Fox is commited to showing ”every minute of practice, qualifying, support categories and the championship races live and in HD” there remains no official word on the extent of the free-to-air component.
Notably, Foxtel and Fox Sports were named before the cash-strapped Ten in Wednesday’s official announcement.
“We wanted to announce the deal first; then we will work through the full content plan and its placement,” V8 Supercars CEO James Warburton said in a written response to Speedcafe.com’s enquires.
“It will be released along with the 2015 calendar.”
It is thought likely that approximately half of the championship’s events will be shown live on Ten, with delayed highlights packages broadcast for the remainder of the schedule.
Such a mix would mirror the model introduced by Formula 1 in the United Kingdom last year, where the coverage is split between the free-to-air BBC and pay channel Sky.
F1’s transition caused significant unrest among fans; an issue likely to be amplified in Australia considering the country’s lower pay TV penetration rate.
In the official announcement, Ten CEO Hamish McLennan said only that his network looks forward to televising “Bathurst and other great V8 Supercars events”.
The Bathurst 1000 is the only race that must be shown live on free-to-air under the nation’s anti-siphoning laws, which themselves continue to be a subject of debate.
“Media consumption habits have changed and are changing rapidly,” argued Warburton, who acted as chief exectutive at Ten prior to his V8 Supercars appointment midway through 2013.
“It will be a free to air component and a pay TV component.
“What we can assure people before we release a full schedule is that there will be substantially more live free to air television and pay television.”
Warburton is also promising “more people, more places, more platforms, more of the time”.
Importantly, the deal coincides with the introduction of Foxtel’s plan to bundle broadband internet and fixed-line telephony services with its existing television product from late 2014.
The online component of V8 Supercars’ media rights package was taken in-house at the start of the current season following Telstra Bigpond’s exit from the sport.
Keeping the championship’s total audience size healthy amid the switch to a pay TV orientated model will be critical to teams, whose income is largely dependent on sponsorship.
Other championships with a mixed schedule of pay and free-to-air races, such as IndyCar, see marquee sponsors prioritise the high-audience, free-to-air, races.
The move from the nation’s most watched free-to-air network to the marginal third best will also not be lost on sponsors, for which television figures are widely considered as the single most important property.
Regardless, V8 Supercars teams and drivers took to social media en masse to praise the big-dollar signing upon its release on Wednesday, hailing the stability it will bring.
The deal follows the stop-gap 2013/2014 agreement with Seven that contributed to the teams’ Racing Entitlements Contract dividends disappearing.
Although the mid-2011 downsizing of the teams’ collective share in the V8 Supercars business from 75 to 35 percent ensures that the days of $800,000 per annum REC incomes are long gone, the teams will undoubtedly see a direct financial benefit from the deal.
Taking into account the previously separate online and pay television rights, the terms are around $6 million per year better than even that under the previous landmark 2007-2012 contract that saw Seven snatch the broadcast contract away from Ten, and around double what is currently seen.
In that context, the Fox-Ten agreement is being chalked up as another win for Warburton, who only stepped into the sport in June.
In that time he has also crucially overseen the re-signing of the championship’s marquee Townsville, Gold Coast and Sydney street races.
