Cricket Australia’s TV deal failed the public and brought the game into disrepute

Last week’s Australia-South Africa series marked the debut of Foxtel’s exclusive coverage of One Day International cricket and the latter’s disappearance, along with T20 internationals, from free-to-air television.

The TV deal struck by Cricket Australia with Seven and Foxtel last April has received surprisingly little public scrutiny compared to the spotlight focused on the travails of CA’s management and the misadventures of the national team.

But the deal deserves greater attention, for the way in which it sidesteps and effectively undermines the anti-siphoning provisions of the Broadcasting Services Act, designed to ensure that major sporting events are available on free-to-air television.

The behaviour of CA put it on weak ground in charging the ball-tampering trio of bringing the game into disrepute.

Cricket Australia and its new broadcasting partners have claimed that anti-siphoning rules don’t mean that free-to-air networks have to show major events on the list whose rights they buy.

They maintain it was legitimate for Seven to on-sell to Foxtel the exclusive rights to ODIs and T20Is which it bought into addition to Test Matches (which Seven will televise).

As noted by Professor Rodney Tiffen of Sydney University, such arguments amount to obfuscation.

They might hold water if no free-to-air network wanted to buy the rights to the event, but in this case both Ten and Nine were also in the running and made very substantial bids for the rights to all cricket internationals.

If CA and Seven’s view was correct, a pay-TV network could simply secure exclusive rights to a major event, e.g. the football World Cup, by getting a free-to-air network to front up and bid and then sell them the rights, possibly in exchange for another part of a package deal.

In reality, a deal that so blatantly undercut the anti-siphoning provisions would probably never happen given the likely public outcry. Precisely such an outcry would have occurred if Seven had sold on the rights to Tests as well as ODIs and T20Is.

The Broadcasting Services Act does state that the Minister may remove an event from the anti-siphoning list if a free-to-air channel licensee has acquired rights to an event but has failed to televise it. But the Act also makes clear that the Minister would have to believe that removing that event from the list was “likely to have the effect that the… event will be televised to a greater extent than it would be if it remained” on the list.

Aaron Finch (second right) of Australia (AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)

Clearly, allowing a match on pay TV means it will be televised to a lesser extent than if it remained on the list, if there are other free-air-bidders willing to pay for the rights.

However, the Communications Minister, Mitch Fifield, who is on the record as not a fan of anti-siphoning, took the view that all is hunky dory.

The regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, has maintained in response to enquiries from Prof. Tiffen it is not was “not in the public interest” to investigate complaints about the cricket deal.

In the face of the obvious purpose of the antisiphoning list and the clear meaning of the Act, ACMA’s apparent abrogation of responsibility is worthy of serious examination by Parliament.

Apart from effectively colluding to undermine legislation designed in the public interest, Cricket Australia’s unapologetic attitude in ensuring that ordinary fans without pay-TV would not be able to see ODIs or the T20Is was arrogant and disrespectful.

It is not just a question of less affluent fans being hardly done by for the sake of grasping for a bigger deal. The experience in England after the cricket rights were sold to Foxtel’s pay-TV cousin Sky has been that the viewing audience fell to about one eighth of what it had been and participation on the game also fell.

It is therefore perhaps timely to recall that the lengthy penalties meted out to Smith, Warner and Bancroft were based on “bringing the game into disrepute”, not for ball-tampering. After all, previous cases of ball-tampering by some of the greats of the game – Atherton, Tendulkar, du Plessis, Philander – had hitherto attracted only one to two Test match penalties.

The Sandpaper Three were hit with match penalties equivalent to ten to twenty times those imposed in the past.

Cameron Bancroft of Australia talks to the umpire. (AP Photo/Halden Krog)

Key reasons stated for the size of the penalties included that the cheating was planned; that the players misled match officials by trying to conceal it from the umpires; and that Steve Smith misled the public in his clumsy press conference.

That is like sentencing someone to one year prison in prison for burglary and then adding ten years to the sentence because the offender tried to hide the crime from the police and the public. As if previous offenders had tampered unintentionally or had trumpeted their deeds from the rooftops! If Smith and co. had appealed their sentences the lawyers would have surely had a field day.

Misleading umpires also seems like a rather eccentric charge when most batsmen fail to walk after edging a ball, and bowlers and fielders calling ‘catch’ when a ball flies in the air off a batsman’s pad.

The charge of “misleading the public” apparently referred to Smith’s suggestion that the ball tampering had been a decision of the team’s “leadership group”. Such low-scale deception was low scale is arguably matched by recent actions by CA.

Notably, the ethics report into CA and its culture has been so heavily redacted and riddled with blackout ink that it looks like a reply by the CIA to a Freedom of Information request from the KGB. Such lack of transparency can be added to the charge sheet flowing from the obfuscation by CA over the TV rights deal.

Former Cricket Australia Chairman David Peever (AAP Image/Penny Stephens)

If CA has any shame, it will show some contrition – towards the public and players – for the double standards applied in punishing the players over Sandpaper-gate.

The recent cleaning of the decks at the top levels of CA provides a good point for CA to take ownership of past errors and help rebuild bridges with the players.

I do not suggest that the three players should have been spared a substantial ban from international cricket. But in light of the clear flaws in CA’s approach, some moderation would be in order, and would serve natural justice.

Curtailing their suspension from playing Sheffield Shield this season would seem most appropriate. This ban will have a doubly punitive effect, making it harder for the players to get back into consideration and prepare for The Ashes and World Cup next year.