Australian Football League Chief Operating Officer Ben Buckley today announced the AFL had reached three-year agreements for its Radio Broadcast rights with the ABC, 3AW, the Triple M Network and new partner SEN 1116.

Mr Buckley said the AFL’s radio agreements across both commercial AM and FM radio and with national public broadcasters would now see every match of every team in the competition broadcast into its home city. For the first time, all Victorian-based teams were now guaranteed radio coverage for every away match outside of Victoria for the first time in the history of the national competition.

Separately, Mr Buckley said the AFL had also finalised its agreement with Perth-based station 6PR, for matches broadcast into WA, and was close to entering into new agreements with 5AA (South Australia), K Rock (Geelong region) and the National Indigenous Radio Service.He said the AFL wished to pay tribute to those organisations that had again committed to AFL football over the next three years.

“The AFL is delighted that we have been able to secure radio broadcast coverage for every home and away match for every Victorian team,” Mr Buckley said.

“It was vital for the AFL that supporters could access radio coverage of their team for every single match they play and this was the highest priority for the AFL in our negotiations with our partners and represents a major step forward for fans.

“We will continue to have the same level of home and away coverage for all teams based outside of Victoria, as we have in our previous radio rights agreements, once those arrangements are concluded and our game continues to be superbly supported on radio throughout the nation.

“The AFL congratulates each of our rights partners for the detailed work they have done in preparing to continue to broadcast AFL football and the combination of our broadcasters will take AFL games to every part of Australia.

“We are also extremely pleased that we have been able to achieve the best possible outcome for the ongoing financial security of our clubs and our game with the commercial value of our AM and FM licenses, coupled with the commitment to regional and remote-based supporters through the partnerships with the ABC and the NIRS,” he said.

The other agreements to be signed with K Rock, 5AA and NIRS are all set to be three-year arrangements.

Under the new arrangements, the AFL is now guaranteed that for any match played outside of Victoria in any timeslot that involves a Victorian team will now be broadcast back into Victoria by at least one radio partner. Previously, there was no guarantee of this kind and, in 2006, there were 16 occasions when Victorian teams outside of Melbourne did not receive any radio coverage back to Melbourne.

Further, the AFL will no longer apply a rotation choice system for matches in Melbourne.

“AFL football, our clubs and most particularly our fans have been extremely well served by our radio broadcast partners,” Mr Buckley said.

“We fully expect they will continue to improve and expand their coverage of AFL football and we look forward to continued success together.”

Coverage breakdown for matches into Victoria
3AW
- to broadcast four games per weekend into Melbourne, covering the regular weekly slots across Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon and all public holiday matches.
Triple M Vic - to broadcast four games per weekend into Melbourne, covering the regular weekly slots across Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon and all public holiday matches.
SEN 1116 - to broadcast five games per weekend into Melbourne, covering the regular weekly slots across Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, Early Sunday and Sunday twilight and all public holiday matches.
ABC - to broadcast five games per weekend into Victoria, covering the regular weekly slots across Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, Early Sunday and Sunday twilight and all public holiday matches