Football Australia has launched its bold new Australian Championship competition, bringing together clubs from across the nation under a unified second-tier format. Starting on 10 October, the inaugural season features 16 clubs, drawn from foundation clubs and National Premier Leagues qualifiers. The format includes a group stage and knockout rounds, culminating in a grand final in December.
To deliver this content efficiently and flexibly, LIGR has been appointed as the production gatekeeper, designing, building and deploying the entire broadcast graphics package and operational platform for the competition, working in partnership with SBS, DoubleTake Sports and Football Australia.
Bridging the gap
As part of its long-term broadcast strategy, Football Australia repositioned itself as a centralised ‘gatekeeper’ for live production across multiple tiers (grassroots, premier competitions) and awarded that role to LIGR and its parent company Crionet after a competitive RFP.
As part of this mandate, LIGR’s responsibilities encompass everything from graphics and branding to distribution, streaming and archiving.
The company has designed a graphics package that aligns with Football Australia’s branding for the Championship, with templates for match day, score bugs, overlays, sponsor integration, data panels and transitions.
When it comes to the production workflow, all matches – whether single-camera or multi-camera – feed into LIGR’s operational architecture, enabling centralised control of picture flow, graphics, replay management, and switching logic. LIGR also captures, edits and pushes highlight reels, full-match replays, mini-match segments and social-first clips for distribution.
Broadcast and OTT distribution is managed via LIGR’s streaming systems and production partners, ensuring low-latency and high-quality delivery to SBS, which has secured a multi-year deal to broadcast the Championship, including linear free-to-air rights (18 matches) and streaming of all fixtures on SBS On Demand. This ensures every match is accessible to fans live and free, giving the Championship and its clubs maximum audience reach and brand building potential. Matches are also delivered live to audiences across selected Pacific markets via Football Australia’s partnership with PacificAus TV.
Each match is also archived, indexed and made retrievable through LIGR’s backend systems, enabling reuse, edits, and club-level content access.
By working with LIGR, Football Australia is ensuring the championship will benefit from broadcast-grade graphics, replay and content tools that enable commercial flexibility through standardised overlays, sponsor slots, content packaging and monetisation channels for clubs, competition, and broadcasters.
Operational efficiency and scale is guaranteed as workflows are centralised under one platform, reducing duplication, lowering marginal cost per match and simplifying logistics.
The system is also built to absorb growth, whether that’s expanded teams or additional competitions, making it a sustainable and futureproof option for a developing competition.
“The Australian Championship marks a pivotal evolution in the national game. With LIGR as our gatekeeper, we have a unified, scalable, and high-quality broadcast engine from day one,” said Football Australia GM, Dave Edwards.
Beyond the Australian Championship, LIGR is positioned to handle Football Australia’s broader match portfolio — from NPL games and below to national competitions — under the same technology stack.
“This project showcases precisely what LIGR is built for: deploying a modern broadcast stack from ground up, enabling every club to benefit from top-tier content tools,” said Luke McCoy, LIGR CEO.
