Will you pay to watch football on the smallest screen?

The AFL, Telstra and Foxtel have finally unveiled pricing for online access to live football games this year. Watching a Foxtel-Lite subscription on the T-Box or X-Box 360 will cost you $49.50 per month, which gets you nine live games each round on the T-Box and eight on the Xbox 360 (the ninth is shown on delay).

Considering the expense, there’s little advantage in watching the footy via the T-Box or Xbox 360 rather than signing up for real Foxtel with AFL coverage for $61 per month. What’s more intriguing is Telstra’s mobile offering, letting Next G users watch all nine matches live for $50 per season, $10 per month or $5 per game. The option of per game pricing is surprising, although perhaps that’s what happens when you take Foxtel out of the equation.

The big question is, do people really want to watch football on a tiny telephone screen? If you’re such a footy tragic that you can’t miss one game then you might consider it better than nothing. But if you’re that keen then you’ve probably already got a Foxtel subscription - which means you’d only need to use the phone service on the odd occasion that you couldn’t get to a television. Telstra actually includes an AFL Live Season Pass with its Foxtel Sports Value Package, so diehard fans might already have a mobile subscription and not even realise.

Then there’s the fair-weather fans who don’t want to pay for a Foxtel service just to watch a few games. I reckon they’d pay $5 to watch the occasional game live on their television, but will they pay $5 to watch on their mobile rather than listen to the radio for free? Time will tell.

Of course Optus’ TV Now has thrown the cat among the pigeons, as this online PVR service is unmetered for Optus customers. The AFL is unhappy about it, but the Optus service is legal under Australian copyright law. If you can spare the mobile data you can also use third-party mobile PVR services like MyTVR, or rig up Orb, Slingbox or Elgato's My EyeTV to stream live TV from your home.

Are you so keen that you’d watch the big game on the smallest screen?