All football and sport in Australia has always been chasing for $. I don't know exactly when they started detaching seriously from free to air in favour of paid services, e.g. Foxtel was the first one, but certainly the footballs have been always harping on about protecting the financial viability of their game.
And of course that also means player salaries will have to be seriously high, too (debates have been on and on and on about this even before free to air loss of rights).
