Don't miss any of the news involving the Swans as we bring you everything from the newspapers around the country on Tuesday 18th August, 2015.

John Longmire says the Swans will not take any risks with Lance Franklin for this week's Sydney derby, fearful of the ramifications a premature return could have for the superstar's finals campaign.

And reigning best and fairest winner Luke Parker's 2015 may not be over after he avoided major damage to his ankle, however he still faces at least four weeks on the sidelines.

Franklin's availability for the Battle of the Bridge with Greater Western Sydney will not be known until after the Swans' final training session of the week on Thursday.

There are also doubts on the fitness of young gun Isaac Heeney, defender Jeremy Laidler and midfielder Ben McGlynn.

The AFL could confirm a new monster TV rights deal worth around $2 billion as early as today.

Channel Seven and Foxtel appear set to stay as the league’s broadcasters in a deal that might run for six years.

Under the new deal, the grand final will probably remain a day game despite a long-running push from broadcasters for it to be played at night. The AFL’s new deal will start in 2017 and run for at least five years.

The league struck the current five-year, $1.25bn agreement less than a year before it started in 2012. The new agreement comes a week after the NRL confirmed a new four-year agreement with the Nine Network.

The rugby league deal has accelerated negotiations for the AFL rights.

Meanwhile, Lance Franklin has resumed running in the hope he will be fit to spearhead the Swans in Saturday’s match against Greater Western Sydney.

The AFL is on the verge of announcing an historic new broadcast deal potentially worth $2 billion over six years with the Seven Network and Foxtel starting in 2017.

League chief Gillon McLachlan was finalising the finer points of the record agreement with News Corp, Channel Seven and Fox bosses on Monday night, with an announcement looking to come as early as Tuesday and certainly this week.

In the restructured deal long-time AFL broadcaster the Seven Network is expected to broadcast less games but continue to hold exclusive rights to the grand final, which would remain a daytime event despite a strong push by Seven to stage the game at night or in twilight.

As reported by Fairfax Media, Seven has come to terms with the AFL to go head-to-head with Channel Nine Thursday night NRL games on 12 occasions each home-and-away season.

Sydney will take their fight to enter the 2015 trade period without restriction to the commission before the end of this month and have not ruled out taking the AFL to court.

Conceding his club should never have accepted the AFL's compromised sanction at the start of this season, Swans chairman Andrew Pridham again accused the commission of "policy on the run".

Pridham insisted that although legal action was not something he condoned or was planning, the club had received "numerous offers of pro bono advice" regarding litigation which specifically dealt with what the Swans maintain is a restraint of trade.

"We are seriously aggrieved by this," said the Swans chairman. "Our football department has always been very upset by this and felt very, very strongly that this was entirely unfair. We have also received ongoing and massive feedback from our members saying we should not accept this.

"We've been very poorly served by the commission. In retrospect we should not have accepted the new relaxed restriction but we were trying to be diplomatic and we had fought hard to have it relaxed. Why accept having something relaxed when it shouldn't be there in the first place?"