Wouldn’t that be AFL football, not cricket!!
No, it wouldn’t.
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How could it possibly be cricket? There is no way there are more cricket followers than AFL. AFL is our country’s national sport and is on for at least 6 months of the year. Sorry but totally disagree with you here. Give me some reasons as to why you believe cricket could be more popular than football.
Haven’t all broadcasters used this technology (probably via NEP) for many years now?
I recall Ten first used it for an AFL Grand Final in either 2009 or 2011.
Similar event and time for Seven.
Nine possibly similar time but for SOO or NRL Grand Final (if not cricket).
Re, sport in Australia: Cricket unites the country while football divides it. I don’t think I can put it any more simply than that, so let’s move on…
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Give me the reason why AFL or tennis is No.1 sports code.
Hmm… This has been showing for about 30min now 
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Not unusual at a public event. I saw Ken Lay regularly directing traffic near the MCG whilst he was Deputy Commissioner. Was there a crown on the Sergeant’s eppilet? That signifies a Senior Sergeant.
Let me caveat my response by saying there’s no universal metric for ‘popular sport’.
But,
Cricket is popular country-wide - there’s no state/territory where it isn’t popular. AFL can’t claim the same - virtually no one in Sydney gives a shit unless a team makes a final, same with Brisbane. NRL is non-existent outside of NSW/QLD - although big events do ok in Melbourne. That uniting factor alone gives it the nod.
TV ratings are consistently good in international cricket and BBL. 1 million on a regular basis for an Ashes session (5 City). They don’t scale the heights of a AFL GF/SOO or Aussie Open final but there’s fewer flash points in the sport (ie. the cricket season doesn’t build to a crescendo, and a big moment. Each test tend to be as important as the one before/after, even if they are series clinching. BBL Final doesn’t have this uniting factor as yet),
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It’s too hard to type on an iPad…
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AFL isn’t even a sport, that would be Australian Rules…
Anyway, I’d say maybe cricket or football is number 1.
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And here we go again with the use rubbish about commentators and boring cricket Nine has. It’s test cricket, slower, more gentleman like than BBL. All test commentary around the world is the same. Listening to BT sport at the cricket sounds just like Nine.
Really? It isn’t about slow, it’s about engaging. From what I’ve seen, Nine’s usual bunch (Slater, Taylor, Clarke, Healy, Chappell) are the worst bunch of cricket commentators in Australia IMO. And do you know why? Because none of theme have anything even mildly clever to say, and their commentary is just plain boring, making the coverage pathetic.
Compare Nine’s cricket commentators to Ten’s BBL commentators, and you realise how pathetic Nine’s coverage is.
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And nine were going to change the combox when it has a year to go on a contract. So again what’s the point of the pointless negativity about who is in the box. When you have three radio channels to chose from now, you don’t even need to listen to Nine.
The options are there not to hear from them, so why listen? 
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Really? It isn’t about slow, it’s about engaging. From what I’ve seen, Nine’s usual bunch (Slater, Taylor, Clarke, Healy, Chappell) are the worst bunch of cricket commentators in Australia IMO. And do you know why? Because none of theme have anything even mildly clever to say, and their commentary is just plain boring, making the coverage pathetic.
Compare Nine’s cricket commentators to Ten’s BBL commentators, and you realise how pathetic Nine’s coverage is.
It sounds like you just find Tests too boring and slow - it’s got nothing to do with the commentary. Test Cricket completely different game from T20 and it makes sense the commentary will be different. I think Nine do a great job covering the cricket and one good thing is that I don’t have to hear about who’s going into the bloody jungle all the time.
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Impressive peak ratings for the cricket on Nine on Wednesday. Figures are in an article in The Australian discussing the next television rights contract. Link is here (paywall).
BT do a great job with intelligent and diverse commentators, and Sky Sports did before them.
There’s a reason so many people mute Nine and listen to the ABC coverage - Nine’s is dumbed down, all about the commentators and is simply a boy’s club with in jokes and the rest. And that’s for test cricket, so it shows people want something different to Nine.
I also have full confidence that Ten would of course adjust their coverage for international test cricket. You can’t have AC/DC as the theme, gaudy tiny sets, flashy graphics, etc for test cricket.
We all live in a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow Submarine…
An attempt to change the subject & get this forum back on track. You’re welcome mods
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A better comparision would be watching Nine’s T20 coverage in comparison to the BBL. The differences are extremely stark, and you can clearly see which is more engaging.
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Absolutely agree. A lot of people complain about the alleged Channel Nine “boys club” but Channel Ten is no different. Case in point when all the Channel Ten male commentators were laughing while Chris Gayle was flirting with Mel McLaughlin a couple of years ago and then only apologised a few overs later when they saw the social media response. All the in-jokes between Ponting, Gilly, Flem, and Waugh are no different to Slater, Taylor and Healy.
And what is so wrong about it being blokey anyway? I’ve never heard anyone complain that the netball coverage is too female-centric.
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