Mark McGowan says West Australians are some of the most passionate football fans in the country and should be able to continue to watch our local teams on TV without having to pay.
Amid revelations WA footy fans could be forced to pay to watch Eagles and Dockers games under a News Corp-backed proposal, the Premier has called on the AFL to stay with free-to-air TV for the sake of its fans in the west.
Seven currently holds the free-to-air rights while the pay TV rights are held by Foxtel, which is 65 per cent owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
But the deal expires in 2024 and the AFL has been holding high-level talks with those media giants as well as ViacomCBS-owned Network Ten and its Paramount+ streaming service, and Nine Entertainment.
“Free-to-air TV coverage of our local footy teams goes a long way to growing the game from the junior grassroots level, to country footy and all the way to professional level,” Mr McGowan said.
“It would be a sad day for Australia if people lost the opportunity to watch the football for free.
“I’d strongly urge the AFL to stick with free-to-air viewing of football.”
Mr McGowan said AFL united West Aussies from “all backgrounds and walks of life”.
“Our recent opportunity to host the Dreamtime match and AFL Grand Final demonstrated on the national stage that WA is second-to-none as a footballing State,” he said.
Popular former Fremantle Docker Shaun McManus said any shift from free-to-air to pay-per-view would be difficult for many households.
“I am all for the business of the AFL, by the way, of making as much money as they can and getting value for money out of the product, because it goes down to the players and the clubs,” McManus told The West Australian.
“I hope they get paid millions and millions of dollars, and never have to work again after playing AFL footy.
“But just bearing in mind that affects people who are real grassroots, which is your household people. Hopefully there could be some compromise.
“I’d like to see people being able to watch it at an affordable price.”
“I just think that’s where it’s all going to go because the game is getting so big,” Sumich told The West.
“If they can’t watch it free-to-air and they can’t afford to pay, you’ll see a lot more people go out.
“In America, they watch it in the pubs and it’s a big thing. England would be the same too.
“It’s an outing.”
In that instance, there would no doubt be an outcry.
“It will be a sad day, I think, the day they stop free-to-air, because it’s been like that since I was a kid,” Sumich said.
He predicted the AFL would go with whatever the young or next generations favoured: the ability to watch on their gadgets, on demand, wherever they were.
“I’ve got the AFL app and I can click onto a WAFL game and out of the four games, I can pick any game. And I thought to myself “how good is this?’”
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