Once upon a time, the only way that you could watch the A-League apart from attending the match in person was by having a subscription to Australian PayTV provider Foxtel. This would get you (admittedly excellent) coverage of the league, including dedicated chat shows and highlights packages, and you would be set for the season. The obvious downside to a Foxtel subscription is all the additional content that came along with it - sure, you also got the Premier League, but on the other hand you received Fox8, Nickelodeon, Channel V, The History Channel, Fox News, and whatever else comes with the basic Foxtel Sports package. Simply put, the A-League was not value for money when you had to pay over $70 a month for a whole bunch of other stuff you weren't interested in. To this sports fan, it has never been about the cost itself - as is often pointed out to me, simply sacrificing a few game-day beers would easily even out the subscription price - but more about the fact that I don't want to pay for things that I don't need or desire.

More recently, things have improved with the announcement that SBS will be screening one game a week on their free-to-air stations. This is a boon for the game in terms of getting people interested, and reaching those (like myself) who simply refuse to sign up to Foxtel. That said, I do wonder if the FFA and SBS could have gone down the 'highlights package' road without needing Fox to lose exclusivity to all its fixtures. Certainly when I was young, I'd sit down and watch the hour-long English Premier League highlights show that used to be on SBS 730pm on Monday nights. I'd watch it near-religiously, and it was enough to get me genuinely interested in the EPL and its stars, without needing to see entire games. Would this have been enough - an hour-long highlights show produced by Fox and shown on SBS? In any case, it's a moot point now.

There's no denying then that the A-League is set to reach more people than ever before, in a way that's more affordable and possibly even more attractive to Foxtel picking up a few new subscribers ("Hey, I quite like this A-League stuff- and if I get Fox, I get more?"). As I look around though, I wonder if this is reflective of where sports broadcasting will be heading in future. Take for example the English Premier League; two seasons ago, for the first time I could watch entire EPL games in high-quality without needing to either subscribe to Foxtel or muck around with the debatable quality and legality of unofficial internet streams. This was because the EPL had struck a deal with the FoxSports website to provide high-quality streams of games, plus a highlights show, for a single one-off subscription fee per season. The price was right - I subscribed as a result - and could now enjoy good quality broadcasts of matches straight from England to my home TV, via my laptop.

Lately, things have evolved even more – Setanta, Al Jazeera Sports, and ESPN all have online offerings that feature football galore made available through your computer, or alternatively, through an IPTV box connected to your television. When I plugged my Apple TV in for the first time at home, I was given the option to subscribe to the NBA, NHL, or MLB to watch a selection of games or the entire season for a single set price. In this case, I didn't need to connect a whole other computer to my TV (a task that may put some people off, albeit a simple cable connection) because this tiny little black box that I could purchase from Myer or Dick Smith did it all for me. The way in which many of these services have been designed is amazing - in some cases, you can subscribe to your individual team, or up to four teams, or the entire season, or just your team and the playoffs, and so forth. The choice you are given as a consumer is astounding. Again, this represents a massive change in the way that sport is delivered to consumers, how we pay for it, and the ease in which it is done - no satellite dishes, no 24 month contracts, and no hardware besides a simple, small, well-designed black box.

All these methods of delivery make me wonder if and when the A-League will make a similar transformation - and what it might mean for people who subscribe to Foxtel. On one hand, it seems obvious to me that Foxtel would prefer people to be on large subscription packages for their TV services, with long contracts, in order to better their bottom line - so it would seem counter-productive to them to provide the A-League as a single subscription service. Thinking on this more however, proves that it's not quite this simple. If we imagine a future where many sports are now available as subscription services, it would not be a stretch to think that you might choose among the following:

          * Barclays Premier League, $90 / season

          * Hyundai A-League, $75 / season

          * National Premier Leagues, $50 / season

          * The Football League, $90 / season

          * La Liga, $90 / season

I've used all-football services in the example above, but you can imagine that you'd mix and match different sports and news services at will. Now, if I was simply interested in the EPL and A-League, and nothing else, you'd imagine one-off subscriptions for both would be your best bet. It's also good for Foxtel, because we could assume that person would not normally take out a home service anyway, and now they've got an extra customer. If however I was a British ex-pat who enjoyed the EPL, Football League, La Liga, and maybe a spot of A-League as well, then all of a sudden I need to start thinking about whether four different subscription services is still value for money - perhaps I could get this, plus a lot more, for just a little extra money if I were to get a full Foxtel subscription. There are various other permutations here that you can work out yourself, but in short I'd propose that Foxtel wouldn't be quite so badly hit by this scenario as you might imagine - and in fact, they could come out of it with a good PR exercise of being able to supply "sport to every home in Australia" or some such. To Fox’ credit, with Foxtel Play they now have an online offering that bundles up many of their popular channels into packages, and you can get Entertainment + Sports for $50/month. This is cheaper than regular Foxtel, though probably still at too high a price point for my liking – especially when you cannot choose Sports on its own.

There are additional benefits to this approach, too - targeted subscription channels mean you can also target your advertising - something that Google and Facebook are becoming spookily good at. When I'm watching Barcelona take on Sevilla, the last thing that I need to see on the next ad break is promotional material for your next great reality TV show, or the latest product that will style my hair for me while I sleep. For someone who subscribes to 'The Football League', would it not be better to target them with say, football? Boots, memberships, tours would all be things we're actually interested in. Perhaps throw in a few related items such as alcohol advertisements, English holiday packages, etc for the target market, and all of a sudden you've surely got a far better hit rate than your typical Foxtel or Free-to-air channels can achieve.

The amusing thing is, a lot of these services already exist, and in many cases for the football we regularly watch - the difference is, they're not yet available in Australia. While in the UK, I was watching streams of A-League games for 'free' with Bet365. Al Jazeera Sports is providing a huge amount of quality football to the Middle East. Anyone in Australia could be doing the same right now through the variety of proxy services and legal streaming sites available overseas, for a monthly subscription that is far lower than paying for a full Foxtel package. Fox may not like that people have access to these services, but the fact is they are out there and people can and do use them - and with more awareness around it, and as these services get easier and easier to set up and use, then you can be sure usage will increase. Therefore, Fox should step forward and address this much as Apple did with iTunes - by providing a completely legal and easy to use online service for people to selectively pick and choose what they want to watch, rather than forcing an entire contract package upon them.

I know from personal experience that I would purchase subscription-based news and sports channels, finally giving up on the rubbish that regular TV provides - and eschewing the bulk pricing of Foxtel packages. If this subscription-based future became a reality, I know I'd be right there as one of the early adopters. But then again, maybe that reflects my technology-orientated view of the world, and the ‘power user' approach I have to a lot of services. Perhaps there are genuine reasons you'd prefer to keep your Foxtel package, even if you don't watch 80% of the channels. In any case, I'd like to hear your thoughts in the comments below - do you think individual subscriptions would help fund the future of Australian football? Or would it simply annoy and shaft the one investor who truly supports, and some would say controls, our modern national league?