Cricket Australia: New Media Rights Deal

Cricket Australia (CA) have signed a new broadcasting deal.  This post covers that deal and provides a follow up to my post on media rights for the BCCI , ECB & CA

The deal is for 7 years, starting in 2024 and is for Auz$1.5bn which is just north of $1.0bn US or £0.8bn.  This is Auz$216m a year compared to the Auz$197m a year under the current 6 year rights package an increase of almost 10%.  However, Australian inflation is currently running at 8% a year and the final payment under the new rights package will be made 13 years after the first payment of the existing deal.  In inflation adjusted terms the deal represents a cut in CA domestic broadcasting revenues, by perhaps as much as 20%.

A couple of points that caught my eye.  Firstly the deal includes the Big Bash, but the number of Big Bash games has been reduced, from the current 61 matches to 43.  Clearly franchise cricket is popular and new franchise leagues are springing up around the world, but it remains to be seen how financially successful short form cricket can be outside of South Asia.  It certainly seems that in Australia as in the UK short form domestic cricket doesn't really move the dial when it comes to signing media rights deals with national broadcasters.  

My second point is just how massive the IPL is now compared to the entirety of cricket in Australia and England.  This is shown in the table below.  

When I first looked at this in 2018 the rights money for the IPL (ignoring the rest of Indian cricket) was already slightly more than the combined total domestic rights package for the ECB and CA.  But now the rights for the IPL, are worth more than twice as much as the combined ECB and CA deals.