What is Seven Sport?
Seven Sport is the sport output of Seven West Media, an Australian company whose broadcast assets are the Seven Network and the 7two, 7mate, 7flix and 7Bravo channels, the 7plus streaming service and the 7NEWS.com.au site. Seven West Media's own corporate site states plainly that "Seven is the broadcast partner of the AFL, Cricket Australia and Supercars".[1]
The company's shape changed at the start of 2026. Seven West Media describes itself as a media company present across broadcast television, audio, publishing and digital following its merger with Southern Cross Media Group, which brought the LiSTNR, Hit and Triple M audio networks alongside The West Australian, The Sunday Times, PerthNow and a group of regional Western Australian titles.[1] Business News Australia reported the merger as completed on 7 January 2026, with Jeff Howard as chief executive and managing director of the combined group and Kerry Stokes as interim chair.[6]
What does Seven Sport cover?
Australian rules football is the anchor. The AFL announced an agreement with the Seven Network, Foxtel and Telstra covering the 2025 to 2031 seasons, reported at 4.5 billion Australian dollars over seven years. Under it Seven carries the same number of matches it carried previously, Thursday night matches in the first 15 rounds, and a set of marquee fixtures live and free — Dreamtime, Anzac Day Eve and Anzac Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, the Queen's Birthday match and three further marquee fixtures — together with at least 30 AFLW home and away matches, the AFLW finals and the AFLW Grand Final. The subscription package taken by Foxtel and Kayo covers all AFL and AFLW home and away matches and finals other than the AFL Grand Final.[4] SportsIndustryAU dates the deal as running 2025 to 2031.[5]
Cricket is the summer counterpart. SportsIndustryAU records a Cricket Australia agreement with the Seven Network and the Foxtel Group covering the 2023-24 to 2030-31 seasons at 1.512 billion Australian dollars over seven years.[5] A Seven West Media release published in October 2025 listed the AFL, Cricket Australia, Supercars and the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games among the broadcast partnerships it would carry on 7plus in 2026, and previewed the Ashes series that began in November 2025.[2]
How large is Seven Sport's audience?
Mediaweek reported on 25 August 2026, citing VOZ 5.0 National and comparing the 2026 AFL regular season with 2025, that Seven's broadcast coverage reached 15.5 million Australians at an average national audience of 585,000, and that 7plus sport reached 4.7 million at an average audience of 84,000 — up from 2.5 million reach in 2025, an increase of 127 per cent in average audience. On the same measurement, streaming accounted for 14 per cent of Seven's AFL audience in 2026 against 7 per cent in 2025.[3]
For the season before that, Seven published streaming figures drawn from OzTAM VPM live, video-on-demand and FAST channel minutes: a streaming audience of 985,000 for the 2025 AFL Grand Final between Geelong and Brisbane and 763,000 for the presentations, 211,000 for the Supercars Bathurst 1000, and 179,000 and 174,000 for days of the fifth Test between Australia and India. Seven also reported 171,000 new 7plus user registrations during the AFL finals series.[2] These are Seven's own published figures with the measurement service named; no independent audit of them could be retrieved.
Since when has Seven Sport existed?
A start date for Seven's sport service could not be established from a primary source, and the corporate entity behind it is younger than the service. What can be dated is the current corporate position: Business News Australia reported the Seven West Media and Southern Cross Media Group merger as completed on 7 January 2026, in a scrip transaction valued at 400 million Australian dollars, with Southern Cross Media's ASX listing ceasing and the combined group continuing under Seven West Media.[6]
The rights that define the service can also be dated. The AFL agreement runs across the 2025 to 2031 seasons.[4] The Cricket Australia agreement runs from 2023-24 to 2030-31.[5] Both extend past the end of the decade, which fixes Seven's two largest commitments for the remainder of it.
Why does Seven Sport matter in Australia's sport?
The AFL Grand Final and the Test matches Seven carries fall inside Australia's anti-siphoning regime. The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts describes the scheme, made under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, as intended to "promote the free availability to audiences throughout Australia of television coverage of events of national importance and cultural significance", and states that a subscription television broadcaster cannot acquire rights to a listed event unless "a free-to-air broadcaster has a right to televise the event".[7] The department states that the reformed scheme and the modernised list commenced on 17 December 2024.[8]
That regime explains the shape of the AFL agreement rather than merely accompanying it: the free-to-air network holds the Grand Final and a defined set of marquee fixtures, and the subscription partner holds everything else including exclusive early-round windows.[4] The codes negotiate these packages separately from one another — the AFL with Seven and Foxtel, the NRL with Nine and Foxtel — so the Australian market has no single sports broadcaster and no single rights cycle.[5]
References
- Seven West Media — About us. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Seven West Media — Coming to 7plus in 2026, October 2025. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Mediaweek — Seven's AFL audience hits 15.5 million as 7plus surges, 25 August 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- AFL — AFL reveals new broadcast rights deal from 2025, Seven, Foxtel and Telstra. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- SportsIndustryAU — Australian media rights deals, page updated 9 March 2025. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Business News Australia — Southern Cross Media and Seven West Media merger finalised, 7 January 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts — Anti-siphoning. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Department of Infrastructure — Anti-siphoning scheme review, commencement of the reformed scheme. Accessed 2026-09-19.