Under a new deal announced today by the ECB… precisely nothing changes. Sky has retained live rights to… well… everything. And Five has a highlights package.
Sky undoubtedly does a superb job. They’ve got lots of resources and they’ve innovated with new technology high-definition coverage, and super-slomo cameras (Although I did laugh on Saturday when it seemed as though play might continue through to the Sunday and David “Bumble” Lloyd told us details about how people in the ground on the Saturday could buy reduced price tickets on the Sunday “for those of you listening on earpieces.” With the best will in the world, nobody listening via earpiece in a cricket ground is hearing the Sky audio feed – they’re listening to Test Match Special on Radio 4 LW and Five Live Sports Xtra (not that the BBC admit that it’s on R4 LW). Listening to a feed available only via satellite is not technically possible without some clever wizardry perhaps involving a laptop and a slingbox).
But the sad fact is that a 45 minute highlight package is not going energise the next generation of young cricketers. When England won the Ashes in 2005 there was a ticker-tape parade with a massive celebration in Trafalgar Square. That simply wouldn’t happen again because the majority of the population would see, at best, highlights.
There will be no live cricket on terrestrial free-to-air television until 2013 at the earliest.
Now the ECB has admonished the BBC for not bidding this time around. Undoubtedly it’s disappointing, and it’s simply not true that the BBC couldn’t accommodate a Test Series. One-day cricket – in particular Twenty20 – could easily be scheduled.
That said, the BBC has countered the ECB’s accusations by declaring that “We have always said that any bid for live test cricket is subject to value for money and ability to schedule. In our view neither of these criteria were met.”
I suspect that it’s less scheduling issues than a value for money test that has kept the BBC out of the fray. The fact of the matter is that if the ECB is simply trying to maximise its revenues, then the BBC is never going to be able to outbid Sky. Sports is Sky’s raison d’etre and it’s simply not good value to pay over the odds. But the ECB could surely have adopted some kind of strategy that essentially meant that subject to some kind of minimum, at least some tests would be available to terrestrial broadcasters.
No form of cricket is accorded Full Live Protected Coverage, so if Sky wants to outbid all and sundry then it’s able to.
It’s interesting that several other broadcasters including ITV, Channel 4 and Setanta were interested in one-day coverage but none bid. They all knew that they’d be trumped by Sky.
If the ECB was serious about wanting to broaden the coverage of cricket, they should have put at least some rights out to tender to terrestrial broadcasters only. And in the long run, while they’re undoubtedly generating more cash than ever before, they’re still the losers.
Cricket is in a mess in any case, with all sorts of tournaments setting up left right and centre. Players are likely to be torn between club and country with some incredible riches seemingly available in the various Twenty20 leagues that are popping up. I’d love to see some impartial attendance figures because while Twenty20 is undoubtedly selling out, I wonder if it’s not getting harder and harder to fill grounds as cricket fans essentially die out.
This won’t end with cricket by the way. Both FIFA and UEFA are keen to remove fixtures from their finals tournament from the Listed Events. Currently the whole tournaments have to be screened terrestrially, but they argue that we only need to see games involving the home nations and perhaps the final on terrestrial television. That’d allow them to sell those other games to satellite broadcasters. It’s something we really need to look out for.