Tag: Cricket
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IPL TV and Streaming Rights
Long-time readers will know that I have a deep fascination with sports rights, the value attached to them and the value generated by the companies that buy them. Sports bodies have worked out the most efficient ways to maximise those rights, getting big media giants to spend freely every few years. The Indian Premier League…
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Amazon and Rugby
This weekend the hastily arranged Autumn Nations Cup competition kicks off, with eight European nations playing each other in two pools initially before a finals weekend determines the winner. The competition is there to replace the usual Autumn internationals made up of southern hemisphere sides playing a series of big games in Europe. I’m sure…
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Champagne Superova: Sport and TV
Sunday was an incredible day for sport. Personally, I spent quite a lot of time flicking between ITV4 and Eurosport’s coverage of Stage 9 of the Tour de France, with South Africa’s Daryl Impey winning from a breakaway on France’s national day. But I was also watching quite a lot of cricket – especially early…
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Free to Air Cricket
Today brings some interesting news, with the ECB actually allowing some free-to-air cricket on TV screens in the future. The BBC has done a deal to see the return of cricket to its channels for the first time since 1999. You will recall that in 1998, Channel 4 secured the rights to most international cricket,…
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Broadcasting Cricket
There are two stories worth talking about in the world of broadcast cricket – a subject I’m only marginally less interested in than in broadcasting football. (See this recent piece for example.) First of all, Jonathan Agnew interviewed the ECB’s Chief Executive Tom Harrison last Thursday during lunch in the final Ashes Test. There is…
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How Not To Reinvigorate T20
The ECB has a problem. As the third Ashes Test gets underway, largely unwatched by the British public, participation in cricket continues to fall. According to Sport England’s Active People survey, just 0.6% of people ever play cricket. And this is a number that’s been in decline since the survey began measuring sports uptake. In…
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The Open Goes to Sky
As has been widely anticipated in the press, today saw news that Sky Sports has won a five-year contract beginning in 2017 to broadcast The Open golf tournament exclusively live. The BBC will have a two hour 8pm-10pm highlights package. Sky is said to be paying twice as much as the BBC, and they will…
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Is Golf Becoming as Invisible as Cricket?
According to a report in the Telegraph, the Royal & Ancient is considering whether or not they extend their 50 year broadcasting agreement with the BBC for future coverage of golf, or whether some or all rights go to Sky. In reality, I suspect that this is a negotiating tactic to try to squeeze a…
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Selling Your Sport Short
There’s an interesting piece in yesterday’s Guardian hypothesising that by selling itself nearly completely to pay-TV players, rugby union could be very short sighted and diminish the appeal of the sport. Regular readers of this blog will know that I think the English Cricket Board has done precisely that, and we’re ending up with a…
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Ashes Highlights This Winter
Returning to a familiar topic, I note that there are no Ashes highlights on Channel 5 this winter. Instead they’ll be broadcast on Pick TV – Sky’s free-to-air channel available on most platforms including Freeview. They’ll be broadcast nightly at 10pm, just before play begins the following day. Live coveragewill of course be on Sky…