Cricket Australia in $570m TV rights deal

Cricket Australia on Tuesday announced an unprecedented Aus$590 million (US$570 million) deal with free-to-air television networks Nine and Ten to broadcast the sport -- a 118 percent increase on the previous five-year contract. Channel Nine, featuring veteran cricket commentator Richie Benaud, will continue to show Australian home Test and one-day matches as it has done for more than 30 years. The network had been in danger of losing the sport after Channel Ten reportedly offered Cricket Australia Aus$500 million for coverage rights for the next five years. The bid was well above the $45 million Nine has paid annually over the last seven years for international matches on Australian soil. "There was never any doubt that Channel Nine was not going to get the cricket," Nine chief executive David Gyngell said. Under the new deals, rival Ten will broadcast Australia's Twenty20 competition, the Big Bash League. "The Twenty20 Big Bash League is a great competition and Ten and Cricket Australia will make it a major free-to-air television event," Ten chief executive Hamish McLennan said. Cricket Australia said the deals ensured all international games at home would be telecast live and in full while the Big Bash would be free-to-air and not on pay-TV. Innovative new digital offerings would also offer fans more access to the game. "The average annual value of the broadcast of Australian cricket in Australia to Australian viewers has just increased 118 percent compared to the last five years to Aus$590 million, which is very important to our ability to invest in the continuing development of our sport," CA chief James Sutherland said. Under the deal, a Aus$60 million joint venture between Nine and CA will integrate the telecast and digital offerings on CA's website, personal computers, smart-phones and tablet devices. Channel Nine televised games will be streamed live to smartphones and tablets. "Cricket here, as with premium sport globally, is a great value proposition, bringing viewers to TV networks who then tend to stay on for other offerings from those networks, whether it be evening news and evening programming off the back of a game, or other content the networks promote," Sutherland said. Sutherland added that the Big Bash League deal justified CA's strategy of investment in the shorter form of the game over the last two summers. "From next summer, Australian cricket moves forward with strong international cricket revenue and also now with strong domestic cricket revenue as well," he said.