The channel was created in 2002 after a multiple-network consortium won the television broadcast rights to the
AFL for the 2002 to 2006 seasons. It granted
free to air rights to the
Nine Network and
Network Ten and granted the subscription rights to
Foxtel. The Fox branding for the channel was licensed from U.S. studio
20th Century Fox in September 2001. The studio was owned by
Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation, who also owned a 65% stake in Foxtel. Fox Footy was originally offered by Foxtel for an additional subscription during the first two seasons of the rights agreement; however, it was moved to the Basic package in February 2004, making it available to all Foxtel subscribers without additional charge for the balance of its life. Due to broadcasting rights, each state had a separate version of the channel to allow free-to-air right holders exclusive live coverage. For example, if Channel Nine or Channel Ten broadcast a match between the
Adelaide Crows and
Sydney Swans live in Adelaide, Fox Footy would have been prevented from showing the match live, whereas if Nine or Ten didn't broadcast it in Melbourne, Fox Footy would be allowed to show it live there. Fox Footy typically repeated all matches after they were played, although often with the commentary of the free-to-air network that presented it live originally. Fox Footy only broadcast the AFL and not any state football leagues such as
SANFL,
WAFL or
VFL.
End of the channel The future of the channel was placed in doubt after the
Seven Network and
Network Ten were awarded the AFL rights from 2007 to 2011. On 23 August 2006, Foxtel announced the Fox Footy Channel would cease broadcasting at the conclusion of the current AFL season and be replaced with
Fox Sports 3. Foxtel CEO
Kim Williams stated "It's not financially viable to continue operating a 24-hour-a-day (Australian rules) football channel when we can only get three live games a week and not on the terms we have sought." The channel ended after a replay of the
2006 AFL Grand Final at 4.00am. Seven and Ten later came to terms with Foxtel and four games per round will be shown on pay-TV through the
Fox Sports channels.
Revival It was announced on 28 April 2011 that the channel will be revived for the 2012 AFL season. The channel returned exclusively on Foxtel and its broadcasting partners, under the proposed new name of
Fox Sports AFL, which was later changed back to its original name
Fox Footy. The channel relaunched on Friday 17 February 2012 with the first
NAB Cup round-robin match between
Hawthorn,
Richmond and
North Melbourne broadcast that night.
Fox Footy broadcasts all NAB Challenge games exclusively, all home and away matches and all finals matches (except for the Grand Final which screens exclusively on Seven). All matches are broadcast
live to air in both
Standard and
High Definition with no commercial breaks during play. When two live matches are being played simultaneously,
Fox Sports 1 broadcasts one of the matches. Football personalities and commentators who signed or re-signed to be a part of the relaunched channel included
Eddie McGuire (who commentates one non-
Collingwood match a week and hosts his own talk show),
Gerard Healy,
Paul Roos,
Jason Dunstall,
Dwayne Russell,
Brad Johnson,
Alastair Lynch,
Tony Shaw,
Liam Pickering,
David King,
Danny Frawley,
Mark Ricciuto,
Glen Jakovich,
Anthony Hudson and
Dermott Brereton. == Former 2002–2006 commentary team ==