Prime time paywall: TV rights for Australian cricket's trophy defences go to new player in broadcast market

Am surprised the fed govt has let this happen. Big mistake.

Yeah, it was hard to describe that T20 series as one for the ages. Mind you, I find it hard to describe any T20 game that way, let alone a series. Presumably it kept someone at the ICC happy and in a job.

The way they’re devaluing various formats of the game playing meaningless series to appease certain control bodies, you’d find it difficult to determine that anything other than a world cup or ashes test series is an”iconic sporting event” as outlined. Haven’t even watched short highlight clips of the just completed T20 series between the Aussies and India. Not like the squads were anything other than second stringers or worse. If it happens, they’ll just lose me but I don’t think I’m the target audience (old & not interested in buying crap products from amazon or betting on cricket).

"“All Australians regardless of where they live, or what they earn, should have the opportunity to enjoy free TV coverage of iconic sporting events,” I think people might be missing the potentially ugly stoush brewing between the gov't and the ICC. The two positions they're taking are polar opposites of each other and only one can be right. It likely comes down to the wording of the relevant law and whether ICC controlled events are seen as "iconic sporting events" in Australia.

I think it is every ICC run event. Inbound and outbound tours, eg ashes or tour of india, are sanctioned by icc but not run, so broadcast rights are determined by CA. So just the icc test final… that’s how i understand it.

Totally agree. I only subscribe on an adhoc short term basis to streaming services... and i loathe the double up fees required to watch sr rugby : stan + stan sport.

Copy and paste the events from cricket.com.au. ICC events Amazon holds rights to: Men's T20 World Cup: USA/West Indies (June/July 2024) Women's T20 World Cup: Bangladesh (September/October 2024) Men's Champions Trophy: Pakistan (February/March 2025) World Test Championship final: England (June 2025) Women's ODI World Cup: India (September/October 2025) Men's T20 World Cup: India/Sri Lanka (September/October 2026) Women's T20 World Cup: England (June 2026) Women's Champions Trophy: Sri Lanka (February 2027) Men's ODI World Cup: South Africa/Namibia (October/November 2027) * Deal also includes all ICC Qualifier and U19 World Cup events In a nutshell, bilateral series are on Kayo/Seven. Ashes series in the UK is on Nine. And ICC events are on Amazon Prime. Fragmentation of a sports tv rights, will make it difficult for a fan to follow.

No doubt having rugby outside a paywall early on would have helped take advantage whilst rugby was ascendent. But rugby grew to the peak of its popularity whilst more games are behind a paywall than is currently the case. That’s why I think rugby is not a great analogy for the current situation with cricket. Its decline was not caused by an increased paywall - although the pre-existing paywall probably didn’t help.

Yeah I forgot that it's the streaming service you get when you sign up for free shipping for Amazon products. Be quite a different subscriber base I'd expect.

Putting my silliness to one side for a moment, the real problem is splitting the pay-per-view content. I mean, how many streaming or pay TV services is the one fan expected to sign up to? The streaming services love a small amount of sport, get one member of the family for the tournament and then hook them with cartoons the kids can't live without. But it's a real slap in the face for fans to have to sign up to different services to watch the same sport. Look at football where at times you have different streaming services for the a-league, premier league, internationals, fa cup etc etc. As Rowdy says, it loses the egalitarian touch but also the social benefits of events that are accessible to everyone. But maybe it's just me who's out of touch with the world.

It's just constant content for contents sake it feels at time. Funnily enough, i think paywalling some of the content helps separate footy season and cricket season. So long as the ashes series in England are still on fta for WA primetime viewing during winter i probably won't mind forking out for streaming the 50over WC.

I understand FTAs not bidding for unfriendly timezone content. Some Wallabies tests are on fta, eg bledisloes and the 4 nations tournament, but no northern tour matches... inbound tours usu/also on fta. There is close to no SR rugby on fta... 1 random game a week is poor when comparing to other football codes. But, it has improved from absolutely nothing on fta. One of the problems for rugby, is timezones... and putting sr rugby exclusively behind a paywall was hardly going to grow the code outside of the private school network. Killing the Force, i was a member for several years, really put me off tbh. Many problems with rugby indeed.

Amazon Prime is the second largest streaming service in Australia, behind Netflix, with an estimated 3.7 million subscribers. Kayo has about 1.4 million subscribers for context.

For the ODI World Cup, I expect what will happen is closer to the time a deal will be struck with a FTA network to on-sell some of the games to be broadcast on FTA. That's happened with other events including the Women's Football World Cup. For the T20 World Cups, Champions Trophy and Women's events I'm not so confident. The two T20 World Cups in particular are on in bad timezones so will have no prime time potential. Regarding Rugby, when did it lose its FTA presence? Wallabies matches have always been FTA and continue to be to this day. And Super Rugby was invented as a Pay TV product. In fact, there is more Super Rugby on FTA than ever under the current deal with Nine and Stan - one game per week. Rugby's issues are far more complex and varied than being behind a paywall.

I don't get it...is this just the next ICC Test Final locked away on Amazon, or literally every test as part of the ICC TC?? :shocked:

And they just disdain the average punter. Sport has lost it's egalitarian touch.

Great, shove the world cups onto some streaming service subscribed to by three teenagers and a dog in Tumut, that'll grow the game. It's a travesty of justice that the people who make these decisions earn more than my local pizza delivery guy.

What does CA say about this arrangement by ICC? Surely, they can't be happy with the national team buried behind a paywall for such high profile events? The article suggests that the next actual one-day (50 over) world cup tournament will be exclusively streamed on Amazon Prime, including Aus games, with no fta broadcast... is this correct? Look at rugby's profile in Aus, that serves as a constant reminder to never lose your fta presence... the BBL and touring series to continue flying the fta flag i expect. Does the anti-siphoning list not cover the icc world cup events?