The Fox Footy Channel was a channel exclusively dedicated to

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

. It was owned by

Foxtel NXE Australia Pty Ltd, trading as the Foxtel Group, is an Australian pay television company that operates cable television, direct-broadcast satellite, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April ...

and operated out of their Melbourne-based studios. From 2002 to 2006 it was available on

Austar Austar was an Australian telecommunications company founded in 1995 as Community Entertainment Television (CETV). Its main business activity was subscription television. It was also involved with internet access and mobile phones. Austar's tel ...

, Optus Television, TransTV and Neighbourhood Cable until transmission ceased on 1 October 2006. The channel was revived as

Fox Footy Fox Footy (stylised as FOX FOOTY) is an Australian rules football subscription television channel dedicated to screening Australian rules football matches and related programming. It is owned by Fox Sports Australia operated out of its Melbou ...

for the 2012 AFL season after a new broadcast agreement was reached between

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The name originates from Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, which in turn derives its name from Fox Fi ...

and the AFL.

History

The channel was created in 2002 after

News Limited News Corp Australia is an Australian media conglomerate and wholly owned subsidiary of News Corp. The group's interests span newspaper and magazine publishing, Internet, market research, DVD and film distribution, and film and television pr ...

won the television broadcast rights to the AFL for the 2002 to 2006 seasons. It granted free to air rights to the

Nine Network Nine Network (stylised 9Network, and commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of the five main free-to-air television ...

and

Network Ten Network 10 (commonly known as the 10 Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paramount Global's Paramount Networks UK & Australia, UK & Australia division and is o ...

and granted the subscription rights to

. Fox Footy was originally offered by Foxtel for an additional subscription during the first two seasons of the rights agreement; however, it was moved to the Basic package in February 2004, making it available to all Foxtel subscribers without additional charge for the balance of its life. Due to broadcasting rights, each state had a separate version of the channel to allow free-to-air right holders exclusive live coverage. For example, if Channel Nine or Channel Ten broadcast a match between the Adelaide Crows and

Sydney Swans The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club based in Sydney, New South Wales. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Swans also field a Austral ...

live in Adelaide, Fox Footy would have been prevented from showing the match live, whereas if Nine or Ten didn't broadcast it in Melbourne, Fox Footy would be allowed to show it live there. Fox Footy typically repeated all matches after they were played, although often with the commentary of the free-to-air network that presented it live originally. Fox Footy only broadcast the AFL and not any state football leagues such as

SANFL The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's sports governing body, governing body for the sport. ...

, WAFL or VFL.

End of the channel

The future of the channel was placed in doubt after the

Seven Network Seven Network (stylised 7Network, and commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is an Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, ...

and

were awarded the AFL rights from 2007 to 2011. On 23 August 2006, Foxtel announced the Fox Footy Channel would cease broadcasting at the conclusion of the current AFL season and be replaced with Fox Sports 3. Foxtel CEO Kim Williams stated "It's not financially viable to continue operating a 24-hour-a-day (Australian rules) football channel when we can only get three live games a week and not on the terms we have sought." The channel ended after a replay of the 2006 AFL Grand Final at 4.00am. Seven and Ten later came to terms with Foxtel and four games per round will be shown on pay-TV through the

channels.

Revival

It was announced on 28 April 2011 that the channel will be revived for the 2012 AFL season. The channel returned exclusively on Foxtel and its broadcasting partners, under the proposed new name of ''Fox Sports AFL'', which was later changed back to its original name ''Fox Footy''. The channel relaunched on Friday 17 February 2012 with the first NAB Cup round-robin match between Hawthorn, Richmond and

North Melbourne North Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne Local government ar ...

broadcast that night. ''Fox Footy'' broadcasts all NAB Challenge games exclusively, all home and away matches and all finals matches (except for the Grand Final which screens exclusively on Seven). All matches are broadcast live to air in both Standard and High Definition with no commercial breaks during play. When two live matches are being played simultaneously,

Fox Sports 1 Fox Sports 1 (branded on-air as FS1) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by the Fox Sports (United States), Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 airs an array of live sporting events, including Majo ...

broadcasts one of the matches. Football personalities and commentators who signed or re-signed to be a part of the relaunched channel included Eddie McGuire (who commentates one non- Collingwood match a week and hosts his own talk show), Gerard Healy, Paul Roos, Jason Dunstall, Dwayne Russell, Brad Johnson, Alastair Lynch, Tony Shaw, Liam Pickering, David King, Danny Frawley, Mark Ricciuto, Glen Jakovich, Anthony Hudson and Dermott Brereton.

Former 2002–2006 commentary team

* Clinton Grybas * Matthew Campbell * Jason Bennett * Kevin Bartlett * Gerard Healy * Jason Dunstall * Wayne Schwass * Mark Aiston ''(Saturday Adelaide Games Only)'' * Kym Dillon ''(Sunday Adelaide Games Only)'' * Chris McDermott ''(special comments)'' ''(Adelaide Games Only)'' * Tim Gossage ''(Saturday Perth Games Only)'' * Peter Wilson ''(special comments)'' ''(Perth Games Only)'' * Alastair Lynch ''(special comments)'' * Tony Shaw ''(special comments)'' *

Wayne Carey Wayne Francis Carey (born 27 May 1971) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with the North Melbourne Football Club and Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). A dual-premiership captain at North Melbourne ...

''(special comments)'' * Scott Cummings ''(boundary rider)'' * Tiffany Cherry ''(boundary rider)'' * Glenn Manton ''(boundary rider)'' * Richard Osborne ''(boundary rider)'' The Sunday afternoon game covered by Fox Footy usually had the combination of Grybas, Carey and Healy; Saturday afternoon saw Bennett, Schwass, Lynch or Shaw; while Bartlett and Campbell were among the Saturday night match commentators.

Programming

Fox Footy produced and aired shows, including: * White Line Fever * Saturday Central * On the Couch * Living With Footballers * AFL Lovematch * The Gospel * Grumpy Old Men * Classic Quarters * The Fox Footy Archive * Fox League Teams * Fox Footy Feature * From The FOX Footy Vault * Footy Flashbacks * Auskick'n Around - Featuring "The Lynch Mob"

References

{{Subscription television channels in Australia Television channels and stations established in 2002 Defunct television channels in Australia Television channels and stations disestablished in 2006 English-language television stations in Australia News Corporation subsidiaries History of Australian rules football 2002 establishments in Australia Sports television networks in Australia