Cricket television rights 2018 (Foxtel/Seven)

No, Nine has just got the rights to netball. It will complement rugby league for much of the first half of each year. It also has the rights to various cycling races in Australia including the Herald Sun Tour and Tour Down Under.

Herald Sun reports that the fight for the next cricket broadcast rights is turning into a four-way battle between Nine, Ten, Seven and Fox Sports. Formal negotiations will start early next year with BBL and WBBL rights sold at the same time as international matches.
I don’t think Seven is really interested in cricket given its involvement with summer of tennis and golf, it is just there to push up the prices.

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Ten really need to retain BBL at all costs at the very least. International rights would be good too but BBL is an absolute must.

I really hope there is no simulcast deal. Fox sports can go away with their monopoly on all sports. Really stifles innovation in my opinion.

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Yeah ten are screwed if they can’t retain it. It would be wise for Ten to try and team up with Foxtel to get the rights to all cricket rights. Then they can give some Big Bash games to Foxtel and same with ODI’s.

Nine’s hold on cricket slips as Ten scores on Big Bash

Nine Network’s grip on international cricket is slipping as the Big Bash League rights held by rival Ten shapes as the big prize.

Mr Marks is refusing to shell out more money for rights to Test matches, one day internationals and T20s held under the existing deal ending in the 2017-18 season.

Sources said Nine was more focused on bidding for the domestic Big Bash, which it believes is undervalued, than the international rights.

Nine is expected to bid for the international rights, but the company is already losing money on its current deal and is unlikely to launch an aggressive offer.

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I can see why Nine want Big Bash. It provides more primetime hours than the International rights. Ten and Foxtel really need to bid together and get both forms of the games. If Ten lose the Big Bash rights they will be in real trouble, it is arguably what got them out of their lows.

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The other main aspect is - it rates pretty much whoever is playing and the performance of the teams.

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They’ll be okay (to a degree) if lose the Big Bash but pick up the international rights considering the solid audiences all forms of the game gets + push towards day/night tests will give which ever network/s more primetime hours of action. Not having either would be an unmitigated disaster.

With the Big Bash, they need to hold onto the entire competition if they do retain the rights and not give up games to Fox Sports in some type of ‘swap’ deal. One of the keys towards the success they have had with the competition is the consistency in having a game pretty much every night between mid-December and the end of January. If Fox has some exclusive games and simulcast the rest with Ten, it will be like the V8 Supercars & F1 deals where there’s no reason why people wouldn’t watch the Fox coverage

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I still think Big Bash is more valuable than the International version. But if they had the international version it is better than nothing at all.

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I agree.

Ch 10 need to heavily invest in sport, with the BBL the only obvious code (of you can call it that) on offer.

Whether they go alone, with Foxtel or with Seven who knows.

I agree on one thing though, Nine look more likely to lose rights than gain them, especially if Ch 10 do throw everything at the rights.

It could be bluff by nine, talk it down and make ten think it isn’t worth that much and nine get a cheap deal on the internationals.

Also is there any word on Optus? As they are picking up sporting rights & are already in with cricket Australia. A relationship with them at the moment could be worth more than trying to build one like Foxtel have too.

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Ten recently said somewhere that the only way they can see extending the value add on the rights is to get the streaming rights to the bbl as well. So I’m sure any rights deal will want to shut out Optus so the networks can monetize the online rights on top of the broadcast rights.

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Would that have come from the fox alliance that ten has? Surly cricket would go down the same path as AFL and NRL and sell an online package too?

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Even if that was the case, Nine should know Ten are very interested in the cricket rights based on the last rights auction. If they didn’t had a ‘last rights’ clause in their last contract, we would have been watching the test which ended today on Ten instead of Nine

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Interesting comment by Nine Entertainment Company boss Hugh Marks to today’s Herald Sun that the network’s cricket broadcasts run at a loss each year, and it spends $100 million a year between the rights and production, and yet it still wants to pursue the rights to BBL.

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Perfect for Fox Sports to form a partnership. None of the networks want to fork out more money and Fox Sports needs cricket.

Yes but does cricket want fox?

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Does it? Cricket is going quite poorly so who knows.

[quote=“akymbo82, post:57, topic:1762, full:true”]
Yes but does cricket want fox?
[/quote]Exactly. Locking parts of the game up on Foxtel will only damage the growth of cricket, especially the BBL. You can’t reach a large, middle class audience by keeping your sport on a pay-tv platform.

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Yep. They do
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/media-reform-cricket-australia-could-reduce-program/news-story/e054a2bc5723cc8288a6b7f68060d3f8

Doesn’t seem to be a problem for NRL and AFL. Cricket Australia will want an increase on the previous $550m deal and I just can’t see Nine and/or Ten forking out more money. There will still be plenty of cricket on FTA.

Pay-wall unfortunately :frowning: