A couple of weeks ago I was informed that Channel Nine had secured rights to the ‘big games’ of the 2012 and 2014 Twenty20 World Cup and the 2015 ICC World Cup, to be held in Australia and New Zealand.
Ha! I knew what this meant. And my suspicions were confirmed when Australia was due to meet Ireland in their opening game of the T20 tournament in Sri Lanka.
Big game to Nine means that they might, possibly, if they’re feeling extremely nice, show half the match, probably after it’s finished, presumably sometime after midnight.
Lo and behold, it’s in the TV guide on Nine at… midnight! And live on Foxtel at… 8pm! What a surprise!
At least the Windies game later in the week appeared to have been a live one. At midnight.
When a network – albeit one close to bankruptcy according to metro media reports – has three, count ’em, three channels to put things on, why is there still this inability to put sports fans first?
Nine used to be the pinnacle of cricketing coverage. Now it’s a shell of its former self.
Can anyone, anywhere, ever imagine SBS making the following equivalent announcement? SBS has the rights to the big games in the 2015 Asian Cup. Meaning they would screen the Socceroos’ group-stage matches live, then maybe more if they progress.
Aside from that, you might get two of the four quarter-finals, one semi-final and the final. Possibly delayed? By at least an hour? Never. Never, I say!
It just wouldn’t wash with football fans, so why does Nine keep treating its cricket nuts in similar fashion?
SBS will no doubt show the majority of the Asian Cup games live whenever possible, and won’t skimp on games involving Outer Mongolia v Micronesia just because a Nordic crime drama might pull a better audience on a midweek evening.
I know there will be the usual replies from fellow Roarers who will simply say, “buy Foxtel”. But that shouldn’t be the case. Nine was impressive enough earlier this year to screen the England-Australia one-dayers live. From England. See, it can’t be that hard, guys!
Please, please, please get your televisual act together by January 2015. I do not want a small-mind mentality applied to big games when the next ICC World Cup rolls into town. It’s a World Cup. Get it?
World. Cup. Where every game is a big game to someone.
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