Mike Fitzpatrick, Tuesday August 18

Thank you all for coming

I would like to introduce everyone here at the table.

From Network Seven:

  • Kerry Stokes, Executive Chairman of Seven Group Holdings and Executive Chairman of Seven Network
  • Ryan Stokes, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Seven Group Holdings.
  • Tim Worner, Chief Executive Officer, Seven West Media

Executive Chairman of News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, Rupert Murdoch, and Chief Executive, News Corporation Robert Thompson. 

From Telstra, Chief Executive Officer, Andy Penn and Joe Pollard, Group Managing Director, Media and Marketing.        

As Chairman of the AFL, and on behalf of our clubs and supporters, I thank you, our media partners for being here, and for your commitment to our game.

I speak on behalf of the industry in saying we know this will be a great partnership.

Before I hand over to Gillon McLachlan to outline the detail of the announcement, I want to congratulate him and his team for negotiating this historic agreement which I believe delivers our game the security and resources it needs to remain Australia’s number one sport into the future.

I also want to thank the Media sub-committee of the Commission – thanks to Kim Williams and Paul Bassett, experienced executives who have assisted in guiding the AFL through this process. 

The AFL understands the challenges ahead for our sport in a rapidly changing and increasingly globalized environment.

We don’t take success for granted, and we have always endeavoured to look ahead and make hard decisions for the long-term future of the game.

The last ten years have been about expansion and investment in the AFL competition. Over that period, we added two new teams and invested in stadiums and infrastructure at the elite and community level around Australia.

Senior AFL football is now played in every state and territory.

Our challenge over the next decade is to make the right investments to grow our reach into every state, region, town and community. Last year we had an average of 32,000 at our Toyota AFL premiership games , we had over 1 million participants, and we have over 13,000 teams in 267 leagues across Australia, and we had nearly 200,000 women participating in the game.

These are the figures and numbers we need to protect and grow.

We need to continue to be the first choice for our elite and talented athletes, we need to strengthen our clubs at all levels, and we need to invest in the community level of our game.

This agreement with News Corporation, the Seven Network and Telstra will allow us to make the right investment to keep our game strong.

I am now going to ask Gillon McLachlan to outline the details of the agreement, and again I want to congratulate the team on this great outcome for our game.