Auditor-General to assess Federal Government’s $40 million Fox Sports funding

Australia’s Auditor General, Grant Hehir, is to review the $40 million in funding granted to pay-television broadcaster Fox Sports by the Federal Government since 2017, allocated to support its coverage of women’s, niche and other under-represented sport.

Hehir, the head of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), has responded to a request from Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, media and communications spokeswoman for the Greens party, with the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper stating that he will look to address the contentious funding through his office’s 2021/22 annual audit work program, which is due to be published in July.

As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, Senator Hanson-Young sent a letter to Hehir, requesting the ANAO to “take a closer look at the funding arrangements.”

Senator Hanson-Young went on to state “Australia has two public broadcasters who could have received the funding instead.

“In order for taxpayers to watch women’s sport on Foxtel, they need to pay for a subscription, effectively paying twice.

“I hope you will agree that this program raises serious questions about value for money, processes undertaken for spending taxpayer funds and ultimately the ability for the so-called intent of a funding program to actually be delivered.”

In July 2020, the Federal Government granted Fox Sports a further $10 million in funding to continue its support of under-represented sports coverage, bringing total funding for the under-represented sports grant to $40 million over six years.

In May last year, Fox Sports’ parent company, pay-television operator Foxtel, said it was “confident” it would meet the conditions necessary to secure the latest funding package. Foxtel is required to broadcast sports such as women’s AFL, basketball and football as part of an initial $30 million grant bestowed by the government back in 2017.

The Federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications, which examined Foxtel’s 12-month performance last July, revealed that over the previous year Fox Sports broadcast more than 4,888 hours of content covered by the grant, including 1,167 hours of live broadcast.

Coverage included more than 3,050 hours of women’s sport, which was an increase of more than 100% since 2016. However, the grants have been provided without a tender process, meaning that Fox Sports’ rival broadcasters have been unable to make their case to receive the funding.

It was announced last month that Kayo Sports, Foxtel’s subscription streaming platform, would stream local sports competitions free of charge via its Kayo Freebies service. Kayo’s headline offerings are the Victorian Football League and rugby league’s Intrust Super Cup - feeder competitions for the AFL and NRL.

Kayo Freebies, which launched in February, said it would also stream free coverage of the National Junior Basketball Championships, the Women’s National Cricket League and other local sports competitions.

Foxtel went on tell the Sydney Morning Herald that it reports annually on how it uses the grant money, noting “given there is broader interest in this issue, we are looking at options for how we can provide more public information on the way we use the grant to support sports.”

Image: Promotion of Foxtel's women's sport coverage. Credit: Foxtel.