Sportsplay was an Australian satellite television service that operated from 1985 to 1987. Sportsplay was one of three Australian satellite hotel television channels that emerged following the launch of the Aussat A1 satellite, and was owned by Powerplay International, then-owners of football league team

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 ...

. Sportsplay commenced transmissions from their Sydney studios on the 1st of December 1986, with programming consisting largely of harness racing and greyhound racing from around Australia, distributed exclusively to hotels and clubs. In 1987, Sportsplay attempted to purchase satellite rights for

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in east ...

matches from rightsholder Broadcom, with plans to show in subscribing venues nationwide, outside metropolitan

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. This resulted in a dispute with the VFL and the

Victorian Country Football League AFL Victoria Country is an Australian rules football governing body with jurisdiction over the state of Victoria outside metropolitan Melbourne on behalf of AFL Victoria. As well as administering and promoting the code in the regions, it often ar ...

, with the VFL planning to enforce its existing statewide ban on screening its Saturday afternoon games live on television in Victoria. This setback with the VFL, along with financial troubles and losing the hotel market share to rivals Sky Channel, saw the station reporting losses of up to $1 million per month in 1987. After a failed attempt to float the company coupled with the

stock market crash of 1987 Black Monday (also known as Black Tuesday in some parts of the world due to time zone differences) was a global, severe and largely unexpected stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987. Worldwide losses were estimated at US$1.71 trillion. ...

, Sportsplay was bought by

Alan Bond Alan Bond (22 April 1938 – 5 June 2015) was an English-born Australian businessman noted for his high-profile and often corrupt business dealings. These included his central role in the WA Inc scandals of the 1980s; the biggest corporate co ...

and Bond Media, and was thus absorbed into Bond's Sky Channel in November 1987.

References

{{Subscription television channels in Australia Television channels and stations established in 1985 English-language television stations in Australia Defunct television channels in Australia Sports television networks in Australia