This post is an update to this, longer post on viewing figures for cricket shown on Sky.   I had a look at the  barb figures figures for the three weeks up to the IPL final on the 10th November 2020.  An audience of 252,607 watched Sky's coverage of the final, pretty good going seeing the programme went out at 1.30pm on a Tuesday, UK time. Figures for other games were a bit lower, generally in the 250k range for the peak Sunday afternoon slot, more like 100k for weekday afternoons and early evenings.  So are these good figures? I'd say it depends on your perspective.  Viewing figures for the IPL on Sky are broadly comparable with those watching England's domestic 20 over competition, "The Blast" (It's a bit hard to compare like with like, as Blast and IPL games go out at different times). That's pretty impressive for the IPL and I imagine the games bring Sky additional revenues from a UK based South Asian heritage audience. Whereas, I suspect, quite ...

A flurry of activity in the sale of broadcasting rights. First the BCCI signed a 5 year US $944m deal with Star for international matches in India.  This was quickly followed up by the Australian Cricket Board selling all its rights for $1,118m for 6 years. These deals compare with the ECB's  5 year a rrangement with Sky worth approximately $1,500m. The deals aren't strictly comparable, along with the perils of converting local currency amounts to US $ they have different start dates and there are different rules on how much can be put behind a pay wall in each country.  And the Indian government has forbidden India v Pakistan matches which would be a huge draw to a broadcaster. (How much would the ECB / ACB get for a program with no ashes tests)? Still on a simple per year basis the ECB comes out best with an annual fee of $300m with India and Australia all the way back on $190m each year.  Of course the six slogging, dancing girl bothering, ...

The BCCI has announced the media rights deal for the  IPL . The deal is for rupees 16,347 crore, about $2.55b or £1.96b for 5 years. At £0.4b per year the deal is worth roughly double the amount the ECB will get for all its UK media  rights both international and domestic.  The deal also dwarfs the BCCI's deal for international matches of just £0.45b for 6 years although that is up for renewal in  2018 . It will be interesting to see if the media rights deal for Indian international matches gets anywhere near the IPL figures.  The ICC's total revenue for an eight year cycle are quoted  as £1.9b. Clearly the IPL is the biggest beast in the cricketing jungle and there must be doubts over the continued relevance of international cricket in general and test cricket in particular.  This is worrying for cricketing supporters who (like me) see test cricket as a better game, both as a spectacle and morally, than the shorter forms. But the...