Australia’s Nine Retains Cricket Rights, Ten Scores Big Bash Coverage

SYDNEY: Channel Nine in Australia has held on to the broadcast rights for cricket games for another five years, while Network Ten signed a deal with Cricket Australia for exclusive coverage of the Twenty20 Big Bash League.

In addition to securing the broadcast deal for a further five years, Channel Nine agreed to a joint venture with Cricket Australia to develop cricket digital products for fans, including streaming matches live to PCs. The CA and Nine joint partnership to develop CA’s digital assets will integrate the telecast and digital offerings in an innovative approach providing compelling, high-quality cricket content on CA’s website, cricket.com.au, and on PCs, smartphone and tablet devices. Nine televised games will be streamed live to smartphone and tablets. Cricket will be the first sport to have no restrictions on smartphone and tablet screen size, and will be the only major sport in Australia to stream matches live on PCs.

The five-year agreement between CA and Ten sees cricket broadcast on the free-to-air network for the first time.

David Gyngell, Nine’s CEO, said: “Nine’s on-going relationship with the game is a source of great pride to me personally and to all Nine employees. I’d like to thank our partners Cricket Australia and also Bruce Gordon and the WIN network whose associated deal with Nine paved the way for today’s agreement.”

Hamish McLennan, Ten’s CEO and managing director, said: “We are delighted to join forces with Cricket Australia as its exclusive domestic Twenty20 cricket partner and we look forward to a long, successful partnership.

“The Twenty20 Big Bash League is a great competition and TEN and Cricket Australia will make it a major free-to-air television event. Our agreement with CA fits perfectly with Ten’s strategy of bringing big television events to a broad audience.”