Australia: ViacomCBS (Network Ten) acquires TV rights to men's and women's leagues for five years

ViacomCBS Australia and New Zealand, a subsidiary of the US media conglomerate, has acquired the TV rights to the Australian professional football leagues (A-League and Westfield W-League) for Australia for five years (2021-2026) from the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), the entity that manages the rights to these leagues, on 26/05/2021.

One A-League (Network Ten channel) and Westfield W-League (Ten Bold channel) game per matchday will be broadcast free-to-air, games that will also be available on the free streaming platform 10Play. All A-League and Westfield W-League matches will be available on the Paramount+ OTT platform, which launches on Wednesday 11/08/2021 for AU$8.99 (€5.60) per month.

The value of the new agreement with ViacomCBS, which contains an option to extend for a further three years, is reported by the Australian press to be worth AU$200m (€126m). This is the first agreement managed by the APL since it was founded on 31/12/2020. The rights of Australian football leagues were previously managed by the Football Federation of Australia (FFA).

In June 2020, the…