I've watched only one game of soccer(that one game where the Australian Team made the World Championships) in over 20 years, I'm not about to run off and get pay-tv because of it.

Carefactor < 0

If pay TV can clear free-to-air media from the curse of saturation coverage for cricket/football (all codes)/tennis/golf/swimming etc. I am all for it.
An odd cricket test used to be something worth watching/listening to. Now we have nothing more than a continuous serving of boring jingoism - national or regional.
If the viewing public want even more of the same with other gladiatorial sporting spectacles, let them pay for it - and provide more free-space for those of us who are less constrained by their disease of addiction.

I am quite surprised by foxtel's generosity. Surely if you have cable you'd be watching Champions League or EPL matches instead of ASL. Perhaps they expect standards to improve over the next 7 years. Perhaps the deal includes the rights to the world cup.

As for anti siphoning I'd expect nothing from Noonan or the government. They have shown that their understanding of the media is limited to keeping the News Corp and PBL chiefs on side. If we were allowed to have additional content on the four spare digital channels that each network posseses there would be no need for anti siphoning lists. But no only the ABC and SBS have managed to get permission for a repeats and a unsubtitled foreign news service channel. While the same people own the pay and free to air networks we cannot expect competition between them. All we get is that all sports will move to pay TV.

Imagine, with a bit of government guts we could have had live AFL, super14, champions league, EPL and other sport events on ch7,ch9 and ch10 sports channels without affecting their regular programming. But wait, the government has no guts and it just ain't gonna happen.