For Rightsholders that are already under significant revenue pressure comes added complexity.

The rolling live fixture and venue leaves leagues fighting for clear air and struggling to build the season’s storyline amid the noise of off-field operational dramas.

Attention will soon need to turn to the 2021 season. For example, with AFL Finals slated for October and collective bargaining agreements requiring two months post season leave, it’s hard to see players back on the training paddock until January.

This will require new flexibility and collaboration with player unions if normal transmission is to resume in March 2021. Broadcasters will expect that is does.

Broadcasters that have previously thrived on building reach and frequency through habitual appointment viewing now have packed fixtures over consecutive weekdays in rarely seen timeslots.

Each telecast is likely to be competing with another football code on another network and competing, perhaps even on its own network, with high rating general entertainment programming (think AFL and NRL vs MAFS, Farmer Wants A Wife, and The Bachelor). With so many options across so many screens, fans are watching fewer games and quitting them faster as they turn away from lopsided contests and fixtures lacking consequence.

The ratings sugar-hit of sports’ COVID hiatus return has subsided. Ratings are now under pressure as networks chase viewers spoilt for choice every night of the week at the same time our attention spans are shorter than they have ever been.

For Sponsors, previously well-considered and seasonally structured sponsorship portfolios now overlap like never before. Since ‘Big Artie’ lit the fuse, NRL’s State of Origin has largely been a 6-week marketing platform in the middle of winter. In 2020 it becomes a three-week post-season event in Spring.

Sponsors are working overtime to ensure large sponsorships remain at the service of their brand and that activities can be reimagined to reflect the requirements of their own rejigged marketing calendars. 

Who would have thought we’d see national footy sponsorships supporting the launch of summer or Christmas marketing campaigns? Welcome to calendar compression confusion.

For Fans, one casualty of the global pandemic is a large cohort who admit they are not as engaged in sport as they used to be. Gemba research suggests 17% of Australian sports fans “didn’t miss sport as much as they thought they would”.

Add to this flagging passion the fact that Australians are now regularly engaging in more than six passion points - younger age-groups as many as ten – and it appears that consumption habits may have changed forever. Fewer, shorter viewing sessions may be the best we can hope for.

The opportunity for the industry? Let us all lean in on the unintended consequences of calendar compression, the death of the sacred-cow fixture, and lead with innovation, try new things and experiment.

So, here’s looking forward to;

A night-time AFL Grand Final

Big Bash Cricket on Christmas Day

The end of meaningless preseason friendlies, a year when Round 1 is really the first game

Beefed up cross promotion. A major horse race during half time of a major footy final

A renewed focus on fans. Sport has become big business, serious business sometimes at the fans expense. Let us have more collaboration between rights holders, brands, and broadcasters to drive better fan outcomes