What is Fox Sports Australia?
Fox Sports is the sport production business of the Foxtel Group. The group's own newsroom describes its portfolio as the subscription television provider Foxtel, the streaming services Kayo Sports and BINGE, the advertising business Foxtel Media and the Hubbl device business, with Fox Sports as, in the group's words, "Australia's leading sports production company" — a characterisation made by the group about itself.[2] The group's corporate site describes the Foxtel Group as "a DAZN company" and Foxtel as the country's largest pay-television provider, again its own description.[1]
Ownership changed hands recently and the date is documented. The Foxtel Group announced that DAZN Group completed its acquisition of the Foxtel Group on 2 April 2025 Australian Eastern Daylight Time, and stated in the same release that "Foxtel, Kayo Sports, BINGE, and Hubbl will retain their brand identities".[2] The release did not state the disposition of the previous News Corp and Telstra shareholdings, and no figure for the transaction value appeared in it.
What does Fox Sports Australia cover?
Australian rules football and rugby league are the two largest packages. Under the AFL agreement for 2025 to 2031 with the Seven Network, Foxtel and Telstra, the subscription partners carry all AFL and AFLW home and away matches and finals other than the AFL Grand Final, with exclusive "Super Saturday" broadcasts in the first eight rounds and separate commentary teams for each match.[3] In rugby league, the Foxtel Group is the subscription partner under the agreement the NRL announced on 7 July 2026, reported at 5.3 billion Australian dollars and running from the end of the 2027 season through 2034, alongside Nine as the free-to-air holder.[4]
Beyond the two football codes, SportsIndustryAU records Cricket Australia rights held by the Seven Network and the Foxtel Group for the 2023-24 to 2030-31 seasons, and a Netball Australia agreement with the Foxtel Group covering 2021 to 2025.[5] The breadth of the Kayo schedule is visible in the group's own account of a record weekend in April 2025, which listed AFL Gather Round, the NRL, the Masters, Formula 1, Supercars, MotoGP, UFC 314, Super Netball, the Indian Premier League and the NBA on ESPN running across the same five days.[6]
How large is Fox Sports Australia's audience?
Two measured figures can be given, from different measurement systems. Mediaweek's report of the Ipsos iris data for June 2026 ranked Fox Sports fourth among Australian sport brands by digital unique audience at 2.86 million, in a month when 14.1 million Australians used sports websites or apps; the brands ranked above it were the Australian Football League on 3.75 million, news.com.au – Sport on 3.26 million and ESPN.com.au on 3.13 million.[7]
For the subscription side, Mediaweek reported on 16 April 2025 that Kayo Sports recorded 844 million minutes viewed across a Thursday-to-Monday weekend, 16 per cent above a record set in March 2025, and gave subscriber numbers of 1.511 million total and 1.499 million paid as at 30 September 2024, an increase of 7 per cent year on year, with the figures attributed to Kayo Sports and the Foxtel Group.[6] That subscriber count predates the change of ownership, and no subscriber figure published by the Foxtel Group or DAZN after 2 April 2025 could be retrieved.
Since when has Fox Sports Australia existed?
A founding year for Fox Sports Australia could not be established from a primary or independently verifiable source, and it is therefore not asserted here.[1] The Foxtel Group states on its corporate site only that "for over 20 years" it has connected Australians to the content it carries, which is a statement about the group rather than about the sport business.[1]
The dated points in the business's recent history are the ownership change on 2 April 2025 and the rights terms now in force: the AFL agreement across the 2025 to 2031 seasons, the cricket agreement to 2030-31, and the rugby league agreement running from the end of the 2027 season through 2034.[2][3][5][4]
Why does Fox Sports Australia matter in Australia's sport?
Fox Sports occupies the subscription half of a market whose division is set partly by statute. The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts states that under the anti-siphoning scheme, made under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, a subscription television broadcaster cannot acquire rights to a listed event unless "a free-to-air broadcaster has a right to televise the event", and that an event drops off the list automatically 26 weeks before it is due to start.[8]
The practical consequence is visible in the rights packages themselves. The AFL Grand Final is withheld from the subscription package and the free-to-air partner carries it; State of Origin sits exclusively with the free-to-air holder in rugby league; and the subscription partner takes volume, exclusivity in defined windows, and the matches outside the protected set.[3][4] Because each code runs its own tender, the Foxtel Group's position differs code by code and expires on different dates.[5]
References
- Foxtel Group — About. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Foxtel Group — DAZN Group completes acquisition of Foxtel, 2 April 2025. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- AFL — AFL reveals new broadcast rights deal from 2025, Seven, Foxtel and Telstra. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ABC News — NRL announces new broadcast rights deal worth estimated 5.3 billion dollars, 7 July 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- SportsIndustryAU — Australian media rights deals, page updated 9 March 2025. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Mediaweek — Kayo Sports breaks streaming record, 16 April 2025. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Mediaweek — Ipsos iris sport category, June 2026 data, published 21 July 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts — Anti-siphoning. Accessed 2026-09-19.