Foxtel have been actively promoting the EPL as part of its sports package recently too.

Yeah this isnt good for the NBL, purely because its not good for Foxtel. They will have to get very creative with what they splurge on next. I cant stand soccer, but have alot of friends that bleed EPL, so this is crushing news to some.

Ofcourse more NBA is a great idea, but with so many people being able to acccess league pass and also watch like myself though sportsbet etc i find that sufficient enough appease my NBA needs.

Foxtel should focus more on the NBA and NBL. Plus getting cricket on board would be good, every game in Australia, at test, domestic level, and one dayers.

Maybe they have just realised that Soccer is about as exciting as watching paint dry?!

Read an article regarding this post. Optus have not yet revealed how they will show/stream the games. It was suggested that they might on sell to a provider (not sure how that works). Also in the article suggested that Optus were also chasing the NRL. Will be interesting where you will actually be able to watch the EPL.

Listened to a podcast recently about a study on suspense and surprise. It suggested that these combined to make soccer particularly successful, whereas there was far less suspense in basketball, for example.

They suggested that one way to tweak soccer to make it even more effective was to introduce the rule that the last goal wins. That would mean that the next goal from the trailing team in a 3-0 game would still be very exciting.

I'm sure there's something to it Isaac, but I think a bigger factor is what you grow up with.

Cricket is boring as batshit but I love it because I grew up loving it. I didn't grow up with soccer or baseball so they're two boring as batshit sports that I don't like!

One of the ticks for basketball is how it's spread worldwide despite not being a 'cultural' sport in many places.

The new FIBA calendar will enhance that by making international basketball a regular thing, and when FIBA gets their act together and finds a solution to open court fouls it will grow again.

Love it or hate it, as a sport, the EPL packages soccer so well it is just super entertaining and lets face it with the amount of money they have and the world wide audience watching it, the EPL is always going to be a monster.

I am sure FOXTEL will find somewhere else to finance with all the money they will save, EPL rights would not be a cheap buy at all, who knows maybe the NBL will get some more of an injection of funds for programming...

I personally think soccer should allow opposition goal keepers to fist the ball into the goals if they choose to take the risk and run down the field.

optus have already stated they will look to on sell a % of the games back to Fox, Optus really only want the marque games

Optus paid $189m Aus for three years of football broadcast in the middle of the night with ratings lower than the A-League (yes, you read that right) which only has 1/3 the games and is already getting more than double the funding from Fox the EPL is.

Let that sink in for a moment and do the maths.

The expectation is that the next A-League broadcast deal will be approximately 300m over the same 3 year period. It of course includes Socceroos friendlies, the FFA Cup games from the RD32 onwards and there is a rumour FFA might be able to sell the National Premioer Leagues Finals Series also (the 2nd tier). International club friendlies, the AFC Champions League and Asia/World Cup games are all out of scope as the FFA isnt entitled to any of that - beyond $250k sanctioning fees for each of the club friendlies played here.

Why pay so much for Australian football? Because it rates better than the EPL, is played in summer at prime time and 'over the top' broadcasters (Optus, BeIn, ESPN) can't get enough of it - putting massive pressure on Fox. Like they need any more of that right now.

EPL leaving Foxtel is terrific news for football.