If 10 do get Cricket, there will be one minor problem.
If they renew A-League/NBL also, there will be Cricket, A-League and NBL all on 10 on Sundays, presumably on 10, 10 BOLD and 10 Peach respectively. However if 10 cut away from cricket for news, NBL and A-League would still be going and cricket would have to be moved to 10 Shake.
Would be good for 10 saying “Tests, BBL, A-League, Women’s A-League and Basketball, all on 10, 10 Bold, 10 Peach, 10 Shake, 10play and Paramount+ this Sunday” but I doubt CA would like 10 to put the end of a test on 10 Shake, 10’s lowest multichannel and I don’t think 10 would be bothered to move the last hour of NBL to 10 Shake etc.
Reckon the sticking point is similar to the one that has allegedly afflicted the A-League’s finances as a consequence of their deal with Ten:
The Herald and The Age can reveal a big contributor to the hole in the APL’s budgets can be traced back to the five-year, $200 million broadcast deal signed with Network 10 and Paramount+ last season.
Sources familiar with the matter say that the APL was required by a clause in that contract to achieve a certain number of subscriptions for Paramount+, the paid streaming service which launched last year in Australia and shows the majority of A-Leagues matches, but fell short of reaching the required target.
As a result, the APL received less money than anticipated from Network 10 this season, and distributions to the 12 clubs were lower as a result - requiring A-League executives to look for another source of income to help make up the shortfall and keep some of the more precariously placed clubs from falling over.
Not difficult to imagine that Ten have included a similar clause in the proposed deal with CA which the latter has understandably baulked at. If Ten insist on a clause of such nature, then perhaps for the good of the sport’s finances, CA might feel it’s better to stick with Fox and 7 at a lower price because the headline figure mooted in the deal with Ten would arguably be somewhat unrealistic.
This is also an A-league fail, in which they think they are more popular than they really are.
Apart from the national team soccer as a league it just doesn’t kick goals in mainstream Australia.
Should have Paramount gone harder for EPL, over Optus, yes. Could this have helped a-league, possible.
Has paramount promoted A-league enough with billboards, radio, social media; personally I don’t think so, but each club needs to take responsibility in marketing themselves too.
For CA it needs to understand their own brand and who is watching it and who isn’t any more.
Ten needs cricket, to get eyes back on the network for longer periods. For a station in which Seven/fox states doesn’t rate, it does have shining lights, which regular beat Seven in HYBPA.
It now comes down to two things, how good can ten pitch themselves and remind CA how good the BBL coverage on ten was, only 5 yrs and where has the sport gone since.
And number two, is CA really wanting to partner with a network that is currently taking them to court and another one that thinks it is doing a good job for cricket but keeping ODI’s behind a paywall in which has seen a drop in over 1m viewers watching cricket short form game.
If CA was serious, it would be demanding ODI cricket back in FTA as its first demand, one increases people watching it home, and drives sales at the gate.
You’d wonder whether CA has sort of given up on ODI cricket. Whether it’s on FTA or not, I think it was inevitable fans would lose interest in this form of the game.
That requires CA to actually put some effort into scheduling the ODIs then rather than simply doing it to meet their (diminishing) FTP obligations. The format is being treated as if its a burden rather then being of any value.
Looking at things from a broadcast quality perspective, CA have no reason to want to end their relationship with Fox. Fox have extensive technology used throughout games to analyse the match. Fox have a streaming option in Kayo which works seamlessly (unlike P+ which has been reported on this forum to have issues). They also attract many high-profile international commentators when different countries come to tour in Australia. Would Ten have the money to hire commentators from overseas when that country tours Australia? Can’t see their owners forking out more money than the bare minimum required should they win the rights.
They’ve come up with new things like showing the speed of shots off the bat, amongst others. They’ve got the Flying Fox camera too.
So when India come over in the 2024/25 summer, how are Ten supposed to pay for the likes of Harsha Bhogle? Do you really think Ten’s owners are going to spend more money than they really have to on their Australian network?
Reality is, Fox have more money to spend than Ten so the quality will be better.
If Ten can pay hundreds of millions for a rights deal to get cricket, I’m sure they will be able to scrape together the funds for an international flight and accomodation for a commentator.
Not only international flights and accomodation but they also have to pay him his fees for the actual commentating…won’t come cheap considering Harsha’s already on $1m overseas. All adds up.
My point is that given how we’ve seen CBS/Paramount show little interest in their Australian network, Ten, to this point, can we really expect them to change? If anything they’ll be more conservative with their spending on the broadcast quality in Australia after forking out hundreds of millions for the rights itself.
You’re acting in hypotheticals, before they’ve even got the rights (which they may not).
I have concerns over whether Ten is the right partner but you’re really going down the rabbit hole before you need to.
Surely if Ten does win the cricket it shows that CBS/ Paramount do have interest in the network?
In any case you’d be talking about pennies in the entire scheme of things to get an international commentator for a series and there are far cheaper options than Bhogle for India.
They did have WinViz, but its garbage and should never be spoken about again.
Are Fox/Seven missing anything that other broadcasters using? It doesn’t really feel like much has changed since Nine generally (the technology that backs what they use has improved though)
