Foxtel must have known that screening a cheeky pre-season ad poking fun at Seven’s chief AFL caller Brian Taylor was going to come back to bite them.
The pay TV outlet’s commercial showed a BT lookalike stuck outside a pub, banging on the front door in frustration because he couldn’t get inside on a Saturday afternoon to watch the footy on Fox. One Seven insider called it “disrespectful”.
A moment from the Kayo advertisement in which a Brian Taylor lookalike is barred from a pub. It’s one instalment of the football commentary wars between Seven and Kayo in season 2025.Credit: Kayo
It was an early salvo in footy’s escalating broadcast wars – a chest-beating declaration that Foxtel had been granted exclusive rights, under the AFL’s new mega TV rights deal, to show all Saturday games in Victoria.
Last Sunday, BT pounced on a chance to return fire.
He was given the opening by Foxtel management who chose to have its three-man commentary team – Anthony Hudson, Dermott Brereton and Brad Johnson – call the Melbourne-Sydney clash from its South Melbourne studio rather than send them to the MCG.
“It is just interesting in this magnificent arena on a Sunday afternoon, a beautiful day, that you come here, and it’s magnificent to be here and look across to the box next door of our opposition, and none of them are here today,” BT said from the MCG during Seven’s coverage of the game.
“They haven’t come from the two-kilometre trek from South Melbourne.”
Seven’s sport and marketing team seized on the moment by taking out a full-page ad in Tuesday’s Herald Sun, saying “We Turn Up”.
The Seven football advertisement which ran in the Herald Sun on Tuesday, May 27.Credit: Herald Sun
An industry expert said the ad would cost between $8000 and $16,000. The message was simple, but multilayered, placed provocatively in a News Corp paper – the Rupert Murdoch company that will hand control of Foxtel to UK sports streaming service DAZN in the second half of this year as part of a $3.4 billion deal.
When asked about the ad on Tuesday, Seven’s director of sport Chris Jones said the network wanted people to know they would “turn up and be at every single match” they covered this year.
“That comes at great expense, but it certainly has a big impact on the coverage and makes the commentators’ lives a whole heap easier,” Jones said. “It is a really important message for us to put out.”
When asked about Taylor’s jab at Fox, Jones said he loved it when BT was being himself and calling uninhibited. Taylor was contacted for comment.
“It’s very difficult as a lead caller or as an expert commentator to be able to get the full perspective of what is going on when they are not at the ground,” Jones said.
“It is something that we are really happy to invest in because we think it has a material impact on the coverage.
Seven’s Brian Taylor had a crack at Fox Footy.Credit: Simon Schluter
“So for BT to be able to be there and to be able to get down to ground level, talk the players before the game, speak to those in and around the team, and then be able to have that full perspective of the ground – it is certainly something that gives him the best chance of calling and being his best.”
Jones would not be drawn on Foxtel’s decision to call a Melbourne match from its Melbourne studio.
“What I want to do is always focus on what Channel Seven are doing,” he said.
“I don’t have a view on what others are doing. But I do know what makes our coverage the best it can possibly be, and being at venues is something that we’ve put a major focus on, which is why we will be at every game this year.”
Foxtel declined to comment, but the company is flying a commentary team to Brisbane to call Thursday’s match between the Lions and Essendon at the Gabba.
Helping anchor Seven’s Thursday night coverage will be Jones’ No.1 recruit and chief agitator Kane Cornes, who dominated coverage last week by having a verbal dust-up with Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge before the game.
“That is a strategy that clearly has worked with many new shows, new attitudes, and we are very proud of what we have been able to do to this point in the season, but we have got a lot of work to do still.”
This season, Fox Footy has assigned a commentary team for every match of every round, rather than last year’s model of taking Seven’s feed when the free-to-air network was the host broadcaster.
Just who is winning the war is yet to emerge as the networks continue to cobble together their mid-season ratings and accompanying spin.
On Thursday morning, Foxtel released figures trumpeting the success of its sport streaming service Kayo Sports, saying Kayo’s year-on-year numbers were up 25 per cent, Thursday nights were up 41 per cent and Friday nights 30 per cent. Fox Footy numbers were not released.
The Collingwood-Geelong clash in round eight on a Saturday night was Kayo’s most streamed match of the season with an audience of 389,000, while its Saturday audiences are up 27 per cent.
