Pay-television broadcaster Ten Sports, which operates in the Indian subcontinent, has acquired rights to Australia’s A-League and FFA Cup club football competitions for the next three seasons.
Under the terms of the deal, brokered by Football Federation Australia’s media rights partner the World Sport Group agency, Ten will broadcast a minimum 86 matches of each season of the A-League and a minimum of 10 matches each season from the FFA Cup.
The broadcast territories covered by the deal are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The agreement has been announced ahead of Sunday’s 2014 A-League Grand Final, which FFA said will be the most watched club match in the history of Australian football.
Brisbane Roar will play the Western Sydney Wanderers with the game set to be the first Grand Final broadcast on Australian free-to-air television, the first to be broadcast live into major European, North American and Asian markets, as well as being live streamed internationally for the first time.
Australian public-service broadcaster SBS will provide delayed free-to-air coverage of the game to add to the exclusively live rights held by pay-television broadcaster Fox Sports.
FFA said the 2014 Grand Final will be broadcast live in 57 countries, including Italy, the UK, Ireland, USA, China, Singapore, Mexico and South Africa.
In a significant boost to international audience reach, the 2014 Grand Final will be available for the first time on live streaming platform ALeague.livesport.tv, a subscription service for users outside of Australia and Oceania.