The Dream Role: Tim Buhagiar on Sport, Creativity and Making the Impossible Possible

How Tim Buhagiar turned a passion for sport into a creative career that's going global with DAZN. 

When DAZN called with a FIFA Club World Cup brief, Tim Buhagiar's team had eight working days to deliver a TVC for five international markets. The result? Nearly 300 million people across Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, and Canada saw Foxtel Group creative work. It's a scale shift that proves what's possible when a 20-year sports media career meets true global reach. 

Tim has spent over two decades at Foxtel Group building that career in sports creative - from his start as a self-described "footy nerd" and production assistant at the original Fox Footy in 2002, to helping launch the channel twice, to now leading creative campaigns as Creative Director of Sport at Kayo Sports and Balboa. It's been a journey marked by passion, persistence, and a few pivotal sideways steps along the way. 

"It's very much the perfect role for me, I'm a sport nut," Tim says. "In terms of where my career has led, working on sport has been the ultimate goal and dream for me." 

"I get to work on the stuff I love," he adds. "The fact that you're actually working on the thing you love is a very rare thing." 

A career built on sport 

Tim's journey within Foxtel Group is a testament to dedication and evolving expertise, beginning in 2002 as a "footy nerd" and production assistant at the original Fox Footy.

From sourcing vision and answering phones, he quickly immersed himself in the gritty, hands-on work of television production. "I had a lot of experience in footy, so I was hired as the sort of go-to in terms of just being across a lot of the finer detail," he recalls. "I worked across all the different shows, sourcing vision, answering phones, just doing all the get your hands dirty type work." 

By 2004, he'd moved into the creative team as a promo producer -a jack-of-all-trades role that taught him copywriting, editing, and directing. When Fox Footy wrapped in 2006, Tim moved to free-to-air for six years before getting the call to come back in 2011. 

Remarkably, Tim played a pivotal role in launching Fox Footy not once, but twice, a feat he proudly recalls: "I was a part of both - starting up both Fox Footies was so cool." That second launch was particularly special, with Tim eventually becoming Creative Director. 

"We had a great little team of creatives there. We used to call it Promo Alley," Tim says. "It was just a really fun time. We used to make a lot of really cool stuff, very engaging and a lot of fun to make and watch." 

Campaigns that stick 

Tim's portfolio is rich with campaigns that have etched themselves into the fabric of Australian sports culture, but there are a few that stand out from the rest. 

"One spot that gets mentioned the most was a campaign for Fox Footy with Geelong Captain, Patrick Dangerfield," Tim shares. "He'd just come back from Adelaide to play for Geelong and live in Moggs Creek, where he was born and raised. We needed something that captured that homecoming but made it distinctly Fox Footy - a bit irreverent, visually arresting."

"Business with pleasure: suit him up, get him on a board at Moggs Creek. It probably shouldn't have worked on paper but put an AFL superstar in a tailored suit on a surfboard and suddenly you've got an image that sticks."

Another iconic favourite is his heavy involvement in creating the now-famous Fox Footy tune, which he developed with London-based composer Mark Willett. The melody has been performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and covered by metal band Parkway Drive, among others. "It's really cool to see it evolve and still be really prominent, you know, 12 or so years later," Tim says. "I'm still not sick of that song, and don't think there'd be many people who've heard it more than me." 

Switching things up 

An unexpected but crucial pivot during COVID-19 saw Tim move into a full-time copywriting role for the broader Foxtel Group. This experience, initially a departure from sport, proved invaluable. "Like everyone, we had to pivot, and my role changed into a full-time copywriter for Foxtel," he explains. "It was no longer a sport-focused role - it was very much a whole business group role." 

Suddenly, Tim found himself working on a whole range of writing for different parts of the business he'd never been exposed to before. 

"Honestly? Moving away from sport creative during COVID wasn't what I wanted," Tim reflects.

"But writing across the entire Foxtel business - entertainment, lifestyle, corporate - forced me to think beyond sport-specific storytelling. When I came back to Kayo, I had a much sharper understanding of how sport creative fits into the broader ecosystem. It was a great learning curve and really helped me grow in my role at Foxtel." 

This broadened perspective now informs his strategic approach at Kayo Sports, allowing him to thoughtfully consider how creative ideas resonate across the entire Foxtel ecosystem. 

"It was great exposure just to see how all the different parts of the business operate and how we fit into the big machine that is Foxtel," he says. "Now having that understanding in my role at Kayo, I understand what the different parts of the business might need. If I have an idea for Kayo Sports, can that work for another part of the business? How can they expand on it?" 

Tim later moved into an Associate Creative Director role at Foxtel, still copywriting but getting back into creative campaigns and marketing briefs. Luck then came knocking and Tim was then made Creative Director of Kayo Sports, "which is the dream role for me," he shares, and a role that's since expanded to oversee all of sport at BALBOA. 

Going global 

A recent collaboration with team DAZN charted an exhilarating new frontier for Tim and his team. When opportunity came along, and Tim was asked to produce a TVC for the FIFA Club World Cup, it offered a powerful glimpse into DAZN's expansive global reach. 

"From the first call, it gave us an immediate insight into the global reach of DAZN," Tim recalls. "There were representatives from the UK, Spain, Italy and Germany, and they all needed a version of this TVC produced." 

Eight working days meant simultaneous creative development across five markets with diverse cultural contexts, sports appetites, and regulatory requirements. "We had representatives from the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany - someone was always starting their day while someone else was ending theirs," Tim recalls. "It was the kind of organised chaos that either crashes spectacularly or proves what a team can do under pressure." 

The TVC, produced for multiple international markets, reached nearly 300 million people across Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, and Canada. 

"When you think about how many eyeballs would have been on that spot, compared to what we've done previously prior to DAZN," Tim explains.

"We would get maybe a couple of million here in Australia, to suddenly have that big worldwide reach is really cool. It just shows that global power that DAZN instantly brought to us." 

The impact was undeniable, with the Marketing Director of DAZN Germany declaring, "BALBOA made the impossible possible," which was certainly another career highlight for Tim. 

"I was going to get that put on a T-shirt, but I haven't done that yet!" Tim laughs. 

World class team with startup spirit 

For Tim, the most exciting aspect of working with DAZN isn't just the scale - though reaching nearly 300 million people certainly doesn't hurt. It's the culture. 

"DAZN are the world's only true global sports streamer, and obviously being a sports mad person, it's really cool because it opens up not only all the different sports they have, but they've also got that startup mentality," Tim explains.

"I think that's the most exciting thing as a creative. There are no rule books, there's no set in stone ways of doing things. Everything's quite malleable, exciting and fresh." 

This agile approach reminds him of those early, formative days at Fox Footy, where innovation was the norm. "I would equate it very much to how my role was when we started at Fox Footy," he says. "It's very exciting, and even though they are much more established, they've still got that startup mentality and approach.

If you've got a great idea or if you've got something you want to put forward, they're more than willing to hear it and try to make it work." 

That startup energy creates space for bold ideas and collaborative learning, which is something Tim sees as a two-way street. "We can definitely learn from them, and take some of their learnings, but the exciting thing is a lot of us here at Foxtel Group are world-class at what we do, and so it's also about where we can give our learnings back," Tim explains. "I've got over 20 years of experience in that creative world and being able to share that knowledge is really cool." 

"The opportunities both ways are really exciting," shares Tim. "It's not just a one-way street, what we are able to offer here as experts in our field to other people, it's really amazing, and it's on a global scale." 

This collaboration truly reinforces Foxtel Group's standing as a global leader in media and entertainment. 

Being ready when opportunity knocks 

For someone who's helped launch Fox Footy twice and now creates campaigns for a global audience, Tim's career advice comes from two decades of experience. 

"Say yes to the brief that makes you pause," he says. "The Fox Footy theme came from 'we need music that doesn't sound like every other sports theme.' The Dangerfield spot came from 'how do we make a homecoming feel fresh?' The DAZN project came from 'can you turn this around in eight days across five markets?'" 

"The work that defines your career usually isn't the safe, expected stuff," Tim explains. "It's the projects where you initially think 'can we actually do this?' and then figure out how to say yes. After 20+ years, that's still what makes this job exciting." 

He also underscores the importance of proactive engagement across the business. 

"Being ready means forming relationships across the group, meeting new people, stepping out of your comfort zone," he explains. "Being a part of the courses and programmes that Foxtel offers - jump at those opportunities. Put yourself out there and usually the rewards come." 

Tim also encourages his colleagues to step back and appreciate the bigger picture. 

"Sometimes you can get a little bit insular, but if you step back and take a moment, we're working for a global content streaming company, in an industry that people would be falling over themselves to get a job at," he reflects.

"It's great to get a bit of perspective and realise that we're super privileged to do what we do." 

From Promo Alley to a global stage with DAZN, Tim's journey proves that sometimes the sideways steps matter just as much as the upward ones – and that being ready for the impossible can lead to putting it on a T-shirt.