‘Disrespectful': Footy commentary war between Seven, Foxtel gets personal
Foxtel must have known that screening a cheeky pre-season ad poking fun at Seven's chief AFL caller Brian Taylor was going to come back to bite them.
The pay TV outlet's commercial showed a BT lookalike stuck outside a pub, banging on the front door in frustration because he couldn't get inside on a Saturday afternoon to watch the footy on Fox. One Seven insider called it 'disrespectful'.
It was an early salvo in footy's escalating broadcast wars – a chest-beating declaration that Foxtel had been granted exclusive rights, under the AFL's new mega TV rights deal, to show all Saturday games in Victoria.
Last Sunday, BT pounced on a chance to return fire.
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He was given the opening by Foxtel management who chose to have its three-man commentary team – Anthony Hudson, Dermott Brereton and Brad Johnson – call the Melbourne-Sydney clash from its South Melbourne studio rather than send them to the MCG.
'It is just interesting in this magnificent arena on a Sunday afternoon, a beautiful day, that you come here, and it's magnificent to be here and look across to the box next door of our opposition, and none of them are here today,' BT said from the MCG during Seven's coverage of the game.
'They haven't come from the two-kilometre trek from South Melbourne.'
Seven's sport and marketing team seized on the moment by taking out a full-page ad in Tuesday's Herald Sun, saying 'We Turn Up'.
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