体坛英语新闻：Australia's native sporting code cements No.1 status with record broadcast deal

CANBERRA, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- The richest TV broadcast deal in Australian history was signed on Tuesday, and only reaffirms what many sports fans already knew -- Australian football is the country's leading sporting code.

Such was the significance of the announcement, News Corp boss and media mogul Rupert Murdoch felt the need to leave his New York office to travel to Melbourne and have a hands-on role in the negotiations.

Valued at more than 1.83 billion U.S dollars over six years, the new deal to broadcast the Australian Football League (AFL) was negotiated with Australian media heavyweights Seven Network (free-to-air), News Corp (pay TV) and Telstra (digital), who have secured the rights to broadcast all AFL games from 2017 until the end of the 2022 season.

That means the AFL is now clearly the pre-eminent sporting code in the country, ahead of rugby league (NRL), cricket, A-League soccer and rugby. The deal secured by AFL executives this week -- worth 306.6 million U.S. dollars per year -- is the richest in not only the history of Australian sport, but Australian television, too.

The previous deal, which expires at the end of 2016, was worth 183.4 million U.S dollars per year. This is also the first deal which will result in the sport being broadcast on free-to-air television in high definition.

Foxtel secured the pay TV rights in the deal, and executive chairman of parent company News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, said he was pleased to yet again invest in Australia's "premium" sporting code.

"This is a very significant investment for us. We've always believed that this is the premium code in Australia -- it's the national game," Murdoch said on Tuesday.

"We're very happy to be doing this. We believe in the strength of the game and we'll do everything we can to make it stronger."

The AFL's Grand Final is consistently the most watched television broadcast in the country; the 2014 installment between the Hawthorn Hawks and the Sydney Swans drew in more than 4 million viewers -- meaning one in five Australians sat down to watch the match.

Over the course of a regular season, more than 4.7 million viewers watch at least one match on television every week.

Though the AFL might be considered the nation's "premium code", it is still behind the country's other winter football code, rugby league, which enjoys huge popularity in the northern states of Queensland and New South Wales.

This is despite the AFL's two latest expansion clubs, Greater Western Sydney and the Gold Coast Suns, being established in rugby league's heartland in the northern states.

But in an attempt to make further inroads into the rugby league fortress, AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan said his team had negotiated extra space and exposure in the News Corp newspapers in Queensland and NSW.

"That's certainly part of the deal," McLachlan told 3AW radio on Tuesday evening.

"I won't talk specifics, but there's a multi-million dollar editorial commitment to New South Wales and Queensland in this deal for our game."

In comparison to AFL's broadcast deal, the National Rugby League (NRL) also secured its rights earlier this month; the Nine Network agreed to terms that would result in 153.8 million dollars being paid to the league annually for five years.

The NRL deal is expected to be worth more once it has negotiated the rights for pay TV, simulcast and international rights, but it still won't hold a candle to the magnitude of the AFL deal.

The first television broadcast rights were signed with the AFL back in 1971, and was worth just 147,000 U.S dollars per year -- 2085 times less than the 2017 deal.