The stoush between Cricket Australia and its disgruntled free-to-air broadcaster has escalated, with hope of a resolution prior to Tuesday’s deadline fading fast.
It has been a fortnight since Seven West Media chief executive James Warburton threatened to pull out of his network’s $450 million TV rights deal with cricket, declaring CA was “the most incompetent administration” he has ever worked with.
Warburton is seeking a reduction in Seven’s instalments for this summer, arguing CA won’t deliver what it promised.
Warburton and CA counterpart Nick Hockley met last Friday, with the former suggesting at the time it had been “constructive”.
The feuding organisations are still in dialogue but Seven has formally outlined its concerns about this summer’s schedule in a legal letter, which suggests CA is in breach of its contract.
This week’s notice could prove the first step in Warburton following through on his threat to walk away from cricket.
However, at this stage Seven is yet to declare that is its intention.
CA and Seven have both sought legal advice about the standoff.
Seven’s next payment to CA, worth approximately $25 million, is due on Tuesday.
The spat will become more heated if the broadcaster fails to meet that deadline, as looks to be increasingly likely.
“Cricket Australia remains in ongoing discussions with the Seven Network about delivering a compelling summer of cricket,” a CA spokesperson said.
“CA is committed to fulfilling its contractual obligations to all its partners this season.”
The governing body has all but finalised a rejigged schedule for summer, which is expected to start with six white-ball games between Australia and India.
Seven’s anger has largely been directed at the BBL, but the network is also unhappy that Fox Cricket will have exclusive rights to Virat Kohli’s first hits of the summer.
CA has pointed out the past two seasons have also started with Justin Langer’s team playing limited-overs games behind a paywall before donning their baggy greens.
The saga comes after a winter of discontent for CA, which removed Kevin Roberts as chief executive and axed 40 staff in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rob Peters
Guest
One of the reasons why Packer wanted cricket on nine in the 1970s, was not just for the money, but because he loved the sport. It left nine because that same depth of love for cricket was gone. There is no love for the sport anymore from broadcasters at either seven or nine, it is all about the bottom line. If cricket was truly loved there would be a way to compromise to keep it on air. The only losers here in all of this are the fans.
Goalsonly
Roar Rookie
https://www.theroar.com.au/anti-siphoning-laws-australian-sport/ This is a paltry amountg sport really and does nothing for local comps. The BIG BASH is not on the list. There could be live Aussie sport on TV every night. Just include some home shopping.
jamesb
Roar Guru
Tv stations only care about ratings and the bottom line. They dont give a hoot about a show or a sport. Channel 7 is copying a tactic from Nine. To get a discount, lets slag a sport in the public domain. I've been a critic of CA for a long time. However its not there fault that Seven agreed to a contract that doesn't feature international t/20's or ODI's.
badmanners
Roar Rookie
Cricket will be on FTA https://www.theroar.com.au/anti-siphoning-laws-australian-sport/ 9 and 10 have expressed interest in showing test cricket (At the right price….) if the deal with 7 falls over. 7’s share price was around $7 a share 10 years ago, it was 12 cents on Friday. Money might be a bit tight!
badmanners
Roar Rookie
They still want it but are just pushing for a discount on the fees they have to pay. 9 and 10 have both expressed interest in picking up the tests so 7 can't go too low pushing in it's negotiations as CA has other options.
Ian
Roar Rookie
I have no sympathy with Cricket Australia in this whole fiasco.When the Bash started it was a bold,fresh product that was on and over in a month.There were good,sometimes great players in all teams.As a cricket tragic who loves Test Cricket I found myself coming home from work,grabbing a beer (or 3!!!) and sitting down every night over the Xmas period and watching it.C10's coverage was fresh,compared to the Boys Club rubbish that had developed on C9's Test Coverage so all was good.Crowds were sensational,ratings were great,all was well.So what did CA do??? They got greedy.Everyone I knew and spoke to in cricket circles were happy with the way the Bash was.A good,tight competion during school holidays that gave all cricket lovers our daily fix.Nobody wanted it extended.Nobody thought that was an even remotely good idea.But CA knew best and over the next few years,added more games and added more days on to an already crowded cricket calender.They devalued the Shield,destroyed 50 over cricket (not hard to do at that time) and generally annoyed everyone of us who love the game. Now the chickens have come home to roost.C7 haven't come out of this with too much credit either.It was clear that they were paying too much for the contract.Ego's in the boardroom are to blame there.Now Australian cricket lovers are staring down the barrel of not being able to see the game we all love on Free to Air at all this summer.Kerry Packer must be spinning in his grave! After living in Australia for the last 30+ years I'm currently living back in the UK.I don't have a SKY Sports subscription so didn't see any of last nights One Dayer.The best you can do here (unless you want to pay ridiculous amounts of money a month) is settle for radio coverage and Highlight clips on the BBC Website....That's the way it's been here since 2005 (with a few exceptions)...Australia cricket lovers,this will be your future....Well done Cricket Australia...You've done a really great job.
Dwanye
Roar Rookie
Yeah, it sort of going along like the nrl and Nine months ago with COVID and possibly no games for the station, threats to jump out of contract. These stations tooting about how they love the game and make it ‘better’, are pretty quick to jump ship and bag-out in public an organisation.
Rellum
Roar Guru
What a dogs breakfast Cricket and the Media are at a corporate level.
AREH
Roar Guru
Great comment
Tight-Head
Roar Rookie
It sounds like 7 is just trying to get out of a contract they can no longer afford. White ball internationals on Foxtel and a bbl with some players missing for test duty are standard at this point, not anything new. If 7 wanted to change this they should have negotiated it when they bought the rights.
Paul D
Roar Rookie
I will just add that the first few seasons of the BBL were great. 8 games each - if it started on that last weekend before xmas around dec 18/19 and always finished by jan 26, with the grand final on oz day or something, that would have been great and was great. but yes, bloated, money grubbing - all of the bad things. To hell with CA. I won't be watching any of it this summer. cricket is better when you're involved anyway, which I can get at my local park every sunday
Brendon the 1st
Roar Rookie
I've known for sometime that T20 will destroy the game of cricket and relegate it to a minor sport, pity the powers that be couldn't see this writing on the wall, it's never been hard to figure out that promoting a game that's basically just an advertising billboard was a stupid move. It was only a matter of time before some corporate big wig decided that T20 and $$ were more important than the actual sport itself, the shield has become a joke, tests and T20 are being played on the same day and now inevitably the T20 season will move more and more into the Test/One day time slots so CA can pocket the cash from TV.......that is until the supporters that don't actually go for the cricket but a day out drop off, which they will because it's an inferior product, but by then the tests would have been relegated to a side-show and interest will have been lost. I flew to Melbourne for the Aus v India boxing day test a couple of years ago but last year I watched maybe two days of cricket, the sport has pretty much lost me, sand-paper gate didn't help either I'll admit. This is what happens when you sell out......Shame, they already had a good product, there was just no need for the BBL here, leave it to the Indians.
Paul D
Roar Rookie
A summer without cricket on TV hurts Cricket Australia far more than any broadcaster. If CA doesn't realise that they truly are an incompetent bunch of muppets
JGK
Roar Guru
And we were lead to believe that Kevin Roberts was the problem!
Rabbitz
Roar Guru
Speaking for myself, a Summer of no free to air television coverage for cricket will change very little. Given the abysmal nature of the Nine Network coverage over the past few years my viewing dropped right off to the point where I pretty much only listened to the ABC radio coverage.
Nat
Roar Rookie
That's the spirit boys, play it out in the media and sling abuse. If the circumstances change for either party than offer up something that reflects that. It doesn't have to be all in or all out (pardon the pun).