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“Do they honestly believe their viewers are so fickle?”

Nine presenter is the latest to criticise the ongoing stoush over network logos on WAFL jumpers.

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Nine News presenter Liam Bartlett is the latest to hit out at the ongoing Perth stoush over network logos on WAFL football jumpers, and Seven’s refusal to screen games with West Perth Football Club.

The “Logo-gate” saga has kept the team off air because they are wearing logos for Nine News.

Bartlett, who declares his interests in an article for The Sunday Times says:

Do they honestly believe their viewers are so fickle or stupid as to switch channels because of a jumper logo?

Frankly, the Nine logo might make West Perth supporters feel more kindly toward the Channel as a valued brand, but they already know Nine cares enough about the club to put money into its account.

If they are rusted-on Seven viewers, they’re never going to be won over just through signage, so what are Seven worried about?

The WAFC should be ashamed of its position. After all, it was the architect of a deal that allowed Seven to contribute nothing in cash to secure the broadcast rights – a deal that is fully underwritten by sponsors and delivers five rounds less than the previous deal with the ABC. Indeed, this weekend there was no WAFL broadcast at all. You may have noticed that even with no local AFL team playing on Saturday, the four WAFL contests were ignored by Channel Seven.

You can read more here.

17 Responses

  1. Nine has bought their old Perth affiliate off Gordon (after screwing him over the price) and are trying to take on Seven’s dominance. That is why they want to associate themselves with Aussie Rules using ambush marketing. The WAFL should have a deal that forces Seven to broadcast the finals. And if Seven don’t broadcast them because West Perth are in them, that will hand Nine much greater free publicity.

    Minor sports have to give away, or pay, to have their sports on TV so that the teams will get sponsorship and the competitions will interest the public. No TV no sponsorships, no audience no competition. If Nine wanted the rights it wouldn’t have cost much to out bid Seven would it.

  2. Do you have any ratings for the WAFL when it was shown by ABC and Now that Stokes owned 7 has it the ratings on the ABC were from what I remember pretty dire but I could be wrong thanks

    1. easygoing777:: I Heard seven saying they have doubled since taking over from Abc.
      Would be interesting to see.
      Same as everyone no games this weekend.
      The Swans vs Tigers would of been a great game to watch on tv.

  3. Ads on players clothes must be useful or the sponsors wouldn’t pay. Today’s graphics cards can “flood fill” or change colours in real time on a frame-by-frame basis. Change the logo to the colour of the shirt and it will disappear. Ads on the pitch surrounded by grass could vanish. I guess that the contract lawyers have thought of this!
    Ads on shirts may be a small matter but many 2nd level execs have petty minds.

  4. I mostly share Bartlett’s position on this – it is very petty of Seven. However, if advertising its News program isn’t going to encourage some people to at least give it a look, what is the point of Nine paying to do so?

  5. not sure this is helping nine at all, their news ratings has dropped since the stories about this issue. nine also asked for east perth not to have the seven logo on their top if they got the rights in 2013.

    1. that’s all about to change come 2017 as Seven no longer has the rights to broadcast Saturday Afternoon Football. I think that is quite bad that Seven couldn’t even manage to put a game on the weekend let alone all year as there has been weeks that there was no WAFL

  6. He is right even though he is essentially saying his bosses are wasting their cash on sponsoring the shirts as nobody will switch to 9 News anyway.

    9 could take the moral highground here and agree to offer the sponsorship to a local charity should 7 air a game – indeed they’d get far more publicity out of that than just having the logos on the shirts (though of course 7 have given them the publicity already!)

    1. Not sure what donating to a charity would do….. As the story says, it sounds like the WAFL team need the money so that would just disadvantage them.

      Totally agree with the sentiments in the story. I’m not from WA so this won’t affect me at all, but it just sounds stupid. Its is just petty, and Seven should be able to rise above it! As was pointed out, other sponsors in other competitions don’t have issues with their competitors and I don’t see why this should be any different. Next they will be blurring or removing rival sponsor logos from Microphones at press conferences……. Oh wait. That’s already been done.

      1. I mean donating the space on the shirt, not the fee. Not sure about in Australia but here in the UK it is something that happens occassionally to promote a good cause.

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