Cricket television rights 2018 (Foxtel/Seven)

The AFR reports today executives from CBS (which will take ownership of Ten soon) have recently met Cricket Australia’s management and want to maintain Big Bash League rights.

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Good to hear but they’re going to have to stump up the extra $$$. Fox Sports will definitely throw everything at this.

If Ten/CBS can extract the online rights with the tv rights then they’ll pay the premium for this.

We don’t want this summer staple on pay tv. Ten absolutely need these rights come hell or high water.

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Some media say CBS/Ten will have a real go at getting the lot, given so much emphasis is on BBL and not internationals as much now anyway.

Surely most would be happy, with continuous displeasure at Nine’s coverage, including commentary team?

Seven the outside chance at causing an upset, but they just have way too many sports and money tight there? Any network would obviously prioritise the Australian Open (certainly finals) anyway. We also saw what happened when CA scheucled BBL final on Aus Open women’s final night, back-fired.

Did it really backfire?

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Well down on 2015-2016 and should’ve been a lot higher.

Don’t make audiences choose sports!

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Since when did Tennis become a viable choice! BBL would be the easy choice for me!

Anyway, I don’t see how Channel Seven could fit the coverage in without moving a lot of things to 7mate. I think overall, people are quite happy with the refreshed product that Channel Ten have provided with their BBL coverage and as we see this week they are really tiring of the “boy’s club” that Nine is producing. I would hate to see BBL go to Nine and back to Foxtel, I think Ten have done an amazing job at building this brand up across the country and I’d hate to see that hard work go to waste. Hopefully they can secure more of the other rights though or even the full suite and really bring a bit of a revival back to the sport.

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Tell the 4.02m (metro) viewers that, who tuned-in to the 2005 Australian Open final.

Biggest OzTam ratings to date.

For sport lovers, just don’t do it I say.

Not everyone who’s interested in the BBL is interested in the tennis, you should know that Luke! :wink:

Aside from that point, it’ll be very interesting to see if CBS money can bring all the cricket (including the longtime Nine staples - test & ODI matches) over to Ten.

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Talk about clutching at straws - that was 12 years ago, in no way would a tennis final get such a large figure now

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And an Aussie was playing in the final (Hewitt).

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Which means a lot of matches will not be shown in HD and fans won’t be happy with that.

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Yes, I understand :smile:

Hazard a guess the tennis has more followers than cricket, given its broad appeal, particularly female.

Exactly.

If an Aussie made the final again (let alone won), it’d go close, over 3m easy.

Given Federer v Nadal got around 2.7m this year!

Kyrgios certainly primed.

Seven and Nine have loads of debt. CBS-TEN have none.

Cricket Australia love the BBL on Ten and have reservations about the Nine product.

CBS would also have an interest in getting streaming rights overseas (lots of indian americans would happily get CBS All Access to watch Aus V India next summer).

At this point, CBS/TEN are in the box seat. Nine have been told to cut costs, so I reckon they will protect the tests and give up the one day/T20 games.

TEN would have cricket every night of the school holidays.

Can’t really see Seven doing anything. They fill out their year quite well with AFL followed by Horse Racing followed by Tennis. Can’t see any BBL on there, because it would push more of the Tennis to the multichannels and Tennis Australia (who are quite cosy with 7) would not be impressed.

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CA would want the internationals packaged as a whole rather than individual formats, particularly in light of international rights sharing that seems to go on. Plus the value of the 50 over games will in theory increase with the new qualifying league basically eradicating the meaningless 5/7 game series against a single team into either a single or dual 3 game series (under the new ICC format starting in 2020/21 they have to have played 4 home 3 match ODI series in a 2 year qualifying league, with the only bi-lateral series in 2019/20 and 2022/23 being the next 2 WC years) and perhaps even the value of tests alone would decrease (or the costs of production) if 4 day tests are scheduled outside of the 3 series that Australia would have to host against any of the remainder of the top 9 nations (i.e. not Zimbabwe, Afghanistan or Ireland) every 2 seasons from 2019/20.

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News Corp noted executives from TV networks were sighted at the Adelaide Oval during the second Ashes test at the weekend. Looks like negotiations are getting serious.
Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland said on ABC Radio earlier this week that next summer Australia would play four tests against India and two tests versus Sri Lanka, and could schedule as many as three day/night tests if Indian cricket officials agreed to playing the pink ball under nights. They should attract good ratings and will be a great start for Ten should they win the test rights.

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Well CBS would be mad not to pay overs for it. Cricket would put ten back on the map.

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Day night matches seem like an obvious thing for matches against India - starting in the afternoon here means it will be at the same time of day as a home test match in India would air.

More prime time coverage here, and a better time zone for viewers in India.

Whichever network(s) get the cricket rights need to have the streaming rights as well. That Nine has to blackout the cricket on their live stream is now looking silly, as is the WBBL matches that are not on Ten and One only being available via a Cricket Australia stream rather than on Tenplay (I know Tenplay as it is is rubbish and that Ten don’t have the streaming rights).

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