Investigating cricket’s broadcast conundrum

The problem is mate for countries like Thailand and PNG two fold. Firstly they don’t have the crew with the experience nor would they have the service providers. It’s one thing to sit in a room in Colombo and direct women’s matches over the internet it’s another to broadcast them live on FTA in nations like the ones you mentioned. The cost of hiring an uplink satellite to beam the pictures around the country itself would put fta channels off let alone the hiring of OB trucks and flying people in to be part of the production crew. You’d be surprised how many people it takes to put a cricket match on TV even if it’s bare minimum coverage, it’s a totally different infrastructure to streaming and the cost is considerably higher. Even If PNG wanted to broadcast their matches there would have to be a tender put out for production companies to bid for and service providers to facilitate the equipment. All the equipment needs to be supplied. Then you have the problem that on a global scale there aren’t that many service providers really who have the equipment required unless you want to risk hiring some dodgy two bit operation with crap equipment or a board with no money? How would Thailand cricket pay for it all. Do you remember the ICL the precursor tournament that led to the IPL? That’s a classic example of a cowboy operation. Strong crew, great service provider dodgy crooked production company and crooks running the tournament Nobody got paid (the last year of the ICL first year of the IPL is an article in itself) I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when Packer was pushing into India and cricket production. My brief along with the other westerners on the crew (mainly Aussies) was train local Indian operators to the levels expected by Channel 9 when Packer was running cricket. We were paid well and over the years forged some great friends and memories. The easy part was that India is cricket mad and has a billion people .Doordarshan had been producing the cricket in India for years our job was to make it better because Packer and a gentlemen who ran a company called WorldTel were going to launch 9 Gold (which never happened) point being it took two multi millionaires money to get cricket production to the level it is now in India because at the time the BCCI didn’t have it. They do now as a result of those early 2000 years but they didn’t then. There’s currently not the interest nor the money in cricket to have developing countries striking up FTA deals. It’s hard enough to get stuff happening in the WI at the moment and has been for years. Companies don’t want to get involved with WI cricket cause the board never has any money to pay anyone. It’s a long winded reply and for that I apologise. Comparing the 6 nations tho doesn’t correlate. There’s no shortage of broadcast money in the U.K. and the BBC is funded by the public. There’s no shortage of interest in Rugby over here in the U.K. either. Cricket has problems going forward and free to air coverage for smaller developing nations simply won’t happen anytime soon. The future is streaming for them. I mean if Cricket Italy are prepared to pay for a small streaming set up to help Cricket Spain stream matches between minnow European nations from Spain (which is being rumoured and considered) it’s the way forward for developing nations in Asia also. Sorry again if I rambled.

Really good article Shounak, well done mate. It’s an article that rings quite close to me as I’ve spent 20 years in sports broadcasting and a lot of that has been working on international cricket from starting on domestic NZ cricket when I lived there right thru to being on the crew of last years World Cup and Ashes coverage. I’ve worked in the replay department and I’ve directed tournaments also and my wife and I met on the IPL so cricket broadcasting runs deep thru our household. The major problem I see going forward is free to air coverage and it’s been a problem for quite a few years. One of the reasons is I personally think that traditional TV as we know it is slowly dying. Streaming services are slowly taking over and it’s the quality of programming that has seen this shift. Cricket on free to air is not looked after anymore by sports departments that work for that particular network it’s not like the golden years of 9’s coverage when everyone involved worked for 9. Sports broadcasting is a freelance industry there is only a tiny percent of people involved who are employed by that company who broadcast the game and free to air TV is a $ dominated industry. ODI cricket doesn’t rate like it did in the 80’s and 90’s the big bash when it was 10 was treated more like light entertainment than it was a sporting production. Slowly but surely free to air TV is turning away from cricket and post Covid there may be even more of a shift as network TV relies so heavily on advertising. Sadly that’s just the way it’s going and was heading this way before Covid. The ICC do a really ordinary job promoting associate cricket if it’s not a T20 or T10 league and for the time being it seems that probably won’t change. I’ve directed matches between Ireland and Afghanistan a few years back that were on its website and YouTube and these were teams playing for test status. Cricket still has a market and a place but it would seem that place is going to be predominantly on pay tv but as people look to recover from Covid pay tv might be a luxury people have to get rid off. Cricket from a production view can be done on the cheap 5 cameras at a minimum but 2 of them have to be able to shoot the ball out of hand and follow so really 7 cameras is the minimum if the crew isn’t that good or experienced. The ICC can get the people happy to do associate cricket with a minimum budget for streaming and a possible app if they want to but for international cricket pay tv will probably continue to be the main source until streaming platforms slowly take over. The world of free to air unless there is a second coming will most likely slowly die off.

I guess country Australians will need to hope for a government which pushes decentralisation, then the technology services might be adequate enough, albeit not cost effective, to enjoy the national sport. In relative terms there isn't enough of them to matter to advertisers anyway.

Which is why Foxtel launched Kayo some time back. The game requires dollars to maintain and grow itself. The investment into the Australian game from the current broadcast deal allowed the game to grow significantly, both in the women's game and improved coverage of SS and domestic OD (though Shield could still be better). FTA is facing significant issues from market split; there are less and less eyeballs on FTA now and that means less advertising dollars coming in, which will ultimately lead to FTA being able to pay less for broadcast rights. As the author pointed out re the 71% of Australians now using paid streaming services, many are using these for movies/TV shows, even if sport is not yet dominant. It doesn't really matter though what the content is, the fact is the viewing of this content means less eyes on FTA. Network 10 itself nearly went under a few years back. Tying the game to what is rapidly becoming an outdated broadcast medium in FTA, restricts the revenue that will go to sport, because increasingly FTA will struggle to find the dollars to present broadcast offers as its advertising revenue shrinks. Whilst the event (say cricket) attracts advertising dollars in its own right, FTA is often making the investment in the broadcast offer to give it brand awareness/loyalty for its other programming. The more "alternative" (e.g. streaming") fragmentation of the home entertainment market occurs (and I think what we have seen in the last 15 years will only take another 5 to achieve again), the smaller the piece of the pie for FTA and the less it can afford to pay for content. I don't have an issue with hybrid FTA/paid, so long as cricket doesn't contractually tie itself to FTA exclusively for a long period of time, because the money won't be there for the game. And whilst the argument could be made that CA is greedy - leaving aside investment in the game - the less financial clout CA has, the more it (we) will have to bend to the BCCI re scheduling and distribution of ICC revenue.

There was a business site article only a fortnight ago which talked about Foxtel's inability to compete with streaming services and that they are going to launch a streaming service called Binge to try and wrest back some local share of the market from the more affordable options. So Foxtel, while grouped with Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc is part of the broader argument versus FTA, but in a local sport viewership argument, isn't a major consideration. Unless Amazon Prime or a cost effective global sport streaming option offer dedicated cricket channels, then cricket on an expensive small market pay tv option like Foxtel won't get wide enough exposure to maintain local viewers.

Agree Paul, the problems for small or country clubs of most organised sports have just been highlighted too. A country AFL development officer based in a Victorian Murray River town said to me the other day that the problem for country footy next year is participation numbers. This 'hiatus' has given some parents an insight into not spending their weekends ferrying kids to games, then having the Club ask Dad to fill in the Two's as they're short, man the gate or either parent spend time in the kiosk of either junior or senior. He said he'd played golf over the river in NSW (as that form of exercise was banned by Dan) with a few mates normally called on to play a few dew kicker games and they were ecstatic at the freedom of a relaxing morning with their mates and reckon THAT will be the 'new normal'. Yet to be seen, of course, but as Shounak mentioned, England's large population can only muster 232,000 participants for at least one game, what does that do for a country our size, especially in cricket without the same FTA exposure of AFL to stir the competitive juices?

Its not that simple. AFL, NRL & Cricket were the most popular sports then and still are now. These things just don't change much.

Great article. Staggering numbers and with 32% less participants in cricket over a decade plus in England since FTA went, you'de think the game will struggle. I think losing FTA has already killed Rugby Union in Australia. I have never paid for TV sport, just taking whatever is free to air. I doubt that will ever change for me.

Firstly, it is genuinely staggering to think that they haven't had cricket on free-to-air in England for 14 years up until the last World Cup. I agree with a lot of the comments already made that throwing ODI and T20 behind a pay-wall has reduced the care factor of those games immensely - the lack of advertising for these encounters in 'normal' (i.e. print media) - also means that I'm not even likely to go to these games as an alternative. I do like the idea of associate matches being included on a streaming service like Kayo - it gives somewhat of an audience, and enough people (I would think) would tune in - I even found myself watching U-19 WC games on Kayo, hardly a glamour event! Finally though, best part of anything that's happened in 2020 has been the - again - postponement of 'The 100'. I hope it never happens and it simply becomes a fable we tell our grandchildren....

Unsure if CA had the same thought process as the ECB had back in 2005, but it's tv rights greed. Pay tv looks at the heightened interest generated by the national team success and believes by throwing money at boards they'll tempt them. That certainly happened with the POMS, but Sutherland stuck around to do the last deal for CA and crucified the sport, knowing full well the participation and viewer drop offs in England over a decade. Yet he still went ahead with a deal which meant 90% of Australians couldn't readily watch their reigning world champion ODI team play that format in their own country. It's always about the short-term money grab, Bob, that's why spin doctors are so prominent in society.

Comprehensive and thought provoking. The true test of streaming with whole days of cricket is highlighted by the author's example from NZ. Consumers pay for internet connections just as they do for pay tv, so a consumer has to increase their allowance - at a higher ongoing cost - to see a days cricket but then the poor quality transmission and speeds become the issue. You can imagine if rural NZ has that issue, that rural Australia's expanse blows that away. The only way the pay option works is with massive global operators like Amazon seeing an advantage in local markets, but if they are reticent then FTA becomes the most logical option, especially as participation is the basis for growth. There's an old saying; 'Take care of the cents and the dollars will take care of themselves '. If national bodies - and by extension the ICC -don't ensure the maximum exposure inside nations with a cricketing history to maintain interest, then every dollar spent in non traditional countries is wasted.

Re the ECB situation, I also think it's hard to draw lessons from 2005 and equate them to 2020 and beyond. The concept of people paying for content in 2005 (and not just cricket or sports) was in it's infancy. Today the majority in Australia and England do it. In 5 years from now, let alone another 15, it will be the way for just about all externally-provided home entertainment I would think.

Agree re streaming and I'm not even sure how much longer FTA will be around. I don't agree with constant assertions made elsewher on this forum that only a small fraction of people have access to paid services. As ACMA published a few months back, by last year 71% of Australians with a TV set in their household also used at least one paid video streaming service. Within 5 years I'd expect to be close to 95%.

I think you need to be a tad careful about pointing fingers about financial management over the past 12 months, Shounak. Both CA & the ECB went into deals that, at the time they were made, looked like sure bets. The stock market was stable & strong while I'm sure the 100 tournament would have at least gotten back the monies invested. Then a tiny problem arose from a Chinese city most of us had never heard of and all of a sudden, these good ideas were not so good. The issue now is about recovery and as you say, in terms of cricket, there needs to be multiple avenues of communication access so fans who want to watch games, can do so in what ever manner suits them. The problem with this model though is pay TV. They are by far the most expensive option,as you pointed out and in order to make a dollar, they have to be exclusive, so people will sign up and pay up to watch games. In order to be exclusive, they're prepared to pay huge amounts, not only in cricket, but in the NRL & Rugby in Australia and the cricket in England. Yes it was a stupid move by the ECB to do go down this path some years ago, but is it stupid now when they're cash strapped? Ditto for CA? Both Boards badly need a short term cash injection and I'm sure they'd happily take money from just about any source, including pay TV. The trick is not getting tied to that medium for more than a year or two, otherwise all the problems you described will happen and happen quickly.