Why an Australian football Netflix series is needed

Netflix boast just under 200 million subscribers worldwide and have released several sports documentaries over the last few years. However, we are yet to see an Australian football Netflix series – an opportunity that should be taken advantage of.

There is a market for these types of documentaries as Netflix is not the only streaming service that features sport docuseries. Amazon Prime has produced also produced documentaries on Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.

One of the most popular football docuseries has been Netflix’s Sunderland ‘Til I Die. The show which provided a behind the scenes view of the club was one of the most watched programs on Netflix in the UK during the week of the release of the second season.

Sunderland has received global recognition off the back of the popularity of the show.

Stewart Donald, owner and former chairman of Sunderland told ChronicleLive that there are lots of reasons why the documentary is good for the club.

“My initial thought with it was, there aren’t many football clubs that can have a global brand, but if you’ve got a Netflix documentary and it goes right, you can get that out to the world and maybe you might get a few people who come along and get emotionally involved in Sunderland who otherwise wouldn’t have,” he said.

“If our name goes out to 20 or 30 million people on Netflix, or however many it might be, that can only be good for the club.”

There are several possibilities for an Australian football docuseries. The show could follow a single A-League club’s season, in the same vein to the Sunderland or Manchester City programs.

Other documentaries have focused on a season of a series or championship as a whole. Netflix’s Formula 1 docuseries Drive to Survive involves several different teams and features a different storyline each episode.

One million households streamed Drive to Survive within the first 28 days of season two’s release according to research agency Digital-i.

An A-League version of this could cover the biggest storylines and moments of the season.

Documentaries have also focused on the national team of a sporing organisation such as Amazon Prime’s The Test which documents the Australian cricket team’s redemption following the ball tampering scandal in 2018.

A series that follows the qualification process of an Australian team for a FIFA World Cup would be a particularly interesting documentary series given the high stakes involved.

The exposure gained from an Australian football Netflix series could be a great opportunity to either introduce people to Australian football or reinvigorate their love for the game.

Drive to Survive has seen an increase an interest for the sport in the US, which is not a traditional market for Formula 1.

Earlier this year Renault Formula 1 Driver Daniel Ricciardo appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah where he discussed the impact that Drive to Survive has had in the US.

“I definitely feel F1 is becoming much more of a thing here in the States. Drive to Survive put it on the map,” he said.

“I spend a bit of time in the States, and up until a year ago, not really anyone would say ‘Hi’ to me – not in a bad way, but they wouldn’t recognise me for being an F1 driver.

“And now it’s all: ‘We saw you on Netflix, it was great, Drive to Survive.’ We wear helmets, so not many people can see our faces a lot of the time.

Given the younger demographic of streaming service users, a docuseries could create a new generation of fans for football in Australia. Depending on the success of the series, it could even inspire more young Australians to play the world game.

At an event for 188Bet in March 2020, F1’s Managing Director of Motorsport Ross Brawn, said that the Netflix series had seen positive impacts for the sport.

“What we’ve discovered is it’s been very appealing to the non race fan: in fact it turned them into race fans,” Brawn said.

“Some of the promoters in the past season have said they’ve definitely measured the increase in interest in F1 that has come from the Netflix series.

“And while Netflix in itself wasn’t for us a hugely profitable venture, in terms of giving greater coverage for F1, it’s been fantastic.

While Football Federation Australia, the A-League and its clubs would not be able to demand the millions of dollars that other clubs and organisations are paid for their participation in a documentary, it could provide a cash boost for the organisations.

Ryan Reynolds has partnered with fellow actor Rob McElhenney to purchase Welsh soccer club Wrexham AFC, who compete in the fifth tier of English football, the National League.

Part of Reynolds and McElhenney’s takeover bid involves plans for a documentary series that follows the events of the team.

Bloomberg spoke to Ampere Analysis analyst Richard Broughton, who said that it would not be unreasonable for a streaming service to pay several hundred thousand pounds per hour for the broadcast rights to a show.

An Australian football Netflix series would be extremely beneficial for the sport in this country.

Avatar
Daniel Foley is a sports junior journalist with Soccerscene. He reports widely on football policy and micro industry matters.

The serious waves Series Futsal have made and what it means for the sport

Football within Victoria in a broad sense is difficult to unpack from multiple angles. What is clear is the passion displayed by fanatics.

Although not a traditional form of football, it’s cousin futsal has slowly emerged as a popular indoor sport that has abundance of opportunity within Australia’s major futsal organisation, Futsal Oz.

Futsal Oz has been the manifestation of the football extraordinaire Peter Parthimos, who founded the entity in 2006. When discussing with Peter in regards to why he created Futsal Oz, he discussed how he wished to unify people, provide competitive competitions to those who played the sport, all the while providing opportunity to those who want to play on a leisurely level all the way to a professional level.

Despite having a turbulent tenure throughout the global pandemic in 2020. Futsal Oz came out of Covid-19 with a newly furbished Futsal court fit for its most talented players. The court resides in their Thomastown location. Series Futsal is currently the highest level of futsal across the country and features abundance of Australia’s most coveted football players.

Melbourne-owned Sport Recreational Wear manufacturer AKU is a proud partner, with many women’s and men’s series sides opting to use AKU as a kit sponsor. The company also designed and created kits which were featured in the monthly major event in Thomastown, combining the best players across the Series Futsal competition to represent their respective ethnicities. The event was broadcasted on FireTv, a subsidiary to American-Bulgarian Company TrillerTv, who specialise in combat and European Sport streaming. Melbourne born Commentator Michael Schiavello spearheaded the broadcast acting as executive producer.

Each Wednesday and Friday the competitions are streamed live via YouTube and its independently ran application “Wefroth”, allowing its humble yet passionate fanatics to watch each round of Series Futsal unfold.

Through the running of competitions and the opportunities it sets through broadcast, futsal is in a healthy position.

Feyenoord secure record shirt sponsorship deal with MediaMarkt

German electronics retailer MediaMarkt will become the new shirt sponsor of Dutch club Feyenoord for the 2024-25 season in a record multi-year deal.

The two parties have agreed a three-year deal – through to the conclusion of 2026-27 – believed to be worth around €20 million (AU$33.1 million) in total, according to Dutch outlet De Telegraaf.

The company will replace EuroParcs which has been featured on the front of the Eredivisie club shirts since 2021.

MediaMarkt is a German multinational chain of stores selling consumer electronics with over 1000 stores in ten countries in Europe. The company is one of the largest sellers of electronics in Europe with a total of nearly 2.1 million products sold in 2023.

MediaMarkt’s head office is in Rotterdam and the company became convinced of the collaboration after gaining insight into various data about Feyenoord that suggests large growth is imminent.

It became attractive for the company because Feyenoord has gained a greater reputation not only nationally, but also internationally through long, reasonably successful participations in the Conference League, the Europa League and also the group stages of the Champions League.

As a result of this on-field success, the MediaMarkt partnership would be the Dutch clubs most lucrative shirt sponsorship deal which follows on from a record kit supply deal signed by Feyenoord last year with Castore, a UK sportswear brand.

Feyenoord have been winning off the field as well, recording record net revenue numbers in two of the last four years, including the 2022/2023 season which amounted to €99 mil (AU$164.2 mil), a thirteen percent increase on the previous year.

In domestic shirt sales, they ranked third last season behind PSV and Ajax but are projected to overtake PSV in 2023/24 after their recent league success.

Feyenoord has a tradition of long-term contracts with main sponsors, MediaMarkt will only be the eighth big name on the shirt. More than half a century ago in 1982, the Gouden Gids was the first shirt sponsor.

This deal is proof of Feyenoord’s incredible growth on and off the pitch with their marketing and trophy successes. MediaMarkt hopes to grow further by investing in Feyenoord’s upward trajectory, located right near their main headquarters.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend