Far from landing the big pay day it hoped, Football Federation Australia may at best have broken even in a new arrangement to broadcast A-League matches on free-to-air TV.
Network Ten will live simulcast Fox Sports' coverage of Saturday night games on its One channel after SBS2's Friday night coverage ended last season.
It essentially means FFA failed to sell free-to-air rights to a major commercial network's main channel.
Instead, it went back to Fox Sports under its six-year, $346 million deal to broadcast all games.
Fox Sports are understood to have on-sold the free-to-air rights to Ten in a deal likely to be worth significantly less than SBS was paying.
"The benefits for FFA are mixed. I don't think it's champagne and caviar out of this," said sports broadcasting expert Colin Smith from Global Media and Sports.
"They do tick the box of having it in free-to-air.
"It is better than being on the secondary channel of SBS, but not being on the main channel of one of the free-to-air broadcasters really says where A-League sits compared to other leading sports in this country.
"It is not what they were hoping for -- a huge deal. The market doesn't value the A-League to that extent."
Ten will also broadcast Socceroos games once the current World Cup cycle has ended.
The FFA has described the arrangement as a win for fans, with drawcard A-League matches, including derbies, that are usually held on Saturday night broadcast free-to-air.
Smith said the FFA has an opportunity to negotiate a better deal if the arrangement, reportedly to last at least two years, proved a success.
But that was dependent on a strong commitment from Ten, he said.
"If it was on Ten's main channel, that would be much, much more attractive. Channel Ten has got to attract people across to One to build it.
"Unless they do some massive cross-promotion, it's not necessarily going to be a huge winner."
Smith said Fox Sports was the biggest benefactor from the deal.
"In essence, it's not going head-to-head [with a rival network]," he said.
"Clearly the strategy of Fox Sports is different to what it used to be and it's saying, 'we'll put some content on free-to-air as an enticer to subscribe.'"