Today’s the day when the ECC decide whether or not they’re going to deprive the masses and do for themselves what rugby (union and league) already does by removing themselves entirely from terrestrial television.
Do they take the extra £20 available and go exclusively to Sky? How much less should nPower, Vodafone and other sponsors pay if the sport were to be marginalised in this way? This is different to football, which, aside from a brief spell just before the foundation of the Premiership, has never had a history of live coverage. No terrestrial channel is going to put cricket highlights on at any time except the dead of night – the ratings just won’t be good enough.
Rugby Union is a case in point. Just over a year ago, England won the world cup. The winning team had a procession through London, Clive Woodward was knighted and all was happy. And then we realised that the Six Nations was the only other coverage the Sky-less were ever going to get. Now the coverage for that is good, and all the matches are live on the BBC. But the Heineken Cup is no longer shared with multi-channel, and club rugby has no outlet. You get broader coverage of snooker on BBC television.
Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see.