Originally Posted by madmusician:
“The killer question, surely, is - hypothetically speaking - if you had a small selection of T20 on an FTA channel, how much revenue would the ECB lose? If the answer to that question is 'not that much in total', then you would want them to give it a go. We're all talking about viewing figures here, but if the financial risk isn't that great, then they are not going to rate worse than Sky, so you might as well try.
International cricket is the subscription-driver for Sky, I would argue. Obviously, the domestic stuff works as padding - for the dedicated cricket fan, there is plenty of cricket on during the summer (practically a game a day) and obviously the more domestic limited-overs cricket that Sky can show means better value for the subscriber, ergo more likely to subscribe. But it is the premium test match series (and other international cricket) that are the real subscription drivers, surely. The point is, *if* you had, I dunno, 10 T20 matches a year shown on, say, BBC Two, how much less would Sky pay for the rights for the international stuff? Logically, not that much. Obviously, if they want to play a game of brinkmanship (threaten to pay less for the international rights unless they have total exclusivity) things get harder.
There's been a lot of very sensible stuff written here about potential viewing figures and the like, but nobody has said what it would *lose* the ECB to pursue a small amount of domestic T20 FTA, all that people have said is that the *gain* will not be as much as some have said.
Actually, I would try to get ITV on side to show the (two) international T20 matches. Ensure to schedule one of them on Bank Holiday Monday in August (as it has been for the last couple of years). It's international cricket, ITV would, you'd hope, pay a not-bad rate for international sport, and it wouldn't rate too badly. It would, at least, be more in the public perception than having it stuck away on Sky. Again, how much less would Sky pay to not show two T20 matches? The shortfall may well not be made up by ITV, but you have to balance the financial shortfall against the gain of eyeballs.
Those are the toss-ups that the ECB should be making. I don't think that you will magically grow the game as some have suggested by putting domestic T20 FTA, but I don't think it should be automatically dismissed either. It's a game of margins - how much financial shortfall can you put up with compared to how much growth of viewing figures.
Go on, clever people - tear my argument apart. I'm sure I've missed something!
”
“The killer question, surely, is - hypothetically speaking - if you had a small selection of T20 on an FTA channel, how much revenue would the ECB lose? If the answer to that question is 'not that much in total', then you would want them to give it a go. We're all talking about viewing figures here, but if the financial risk isn't that great, then they are not going to rate worse than Sky, so you might as well try.
International cricket is the subscription-driver for Sky, I would argue. Obviously, the domestic stuff works as padding - for the dedicated cricket fan, there is plenty of cricket on during the summer (practically a game a day) and obviously the more domestic limited-overs cricket that Sky can show means better value for the subscriber, ergo more likely to subscribe. But it is the premium test match series (and other international cricket) that are the real subscription drivers, surely. The point is, *if* you had, I dunno, 10 T20 matches a year shown on, say, BBC Two, how much less would Sky pay for the rights for the international stuff? Logically, not that much. Obviously, if they want to play a game of brinkmanship (threaten to pay less for the international rights unless they have total exclusivity) things get harder.
There's been a lot of very sensible stuff written here about potential viewing figures and the like, but nobody has said what it would *lose* the ECB to pursue a small amount of domestic T20 FTA, all that people have said is that the *gain* will not be as much as some have said.
Actually, I would try to get ITV on side to show the (two) international T20 matches. Ensure to schedule one of them on Bank Holiday Monday in August (as it has been for the last couple of years). It's international cricket, ITV would, you'd hope, pay a not-bad rate for international sport, and it wouldn't rate too badly. It would, at least, be more in the public perception than having it stuck away on Sky. Again, how much less would Sky pay to not show two T20 matches? The shortfall may well not be made up by ITV, but you have to balance the financial shortfall against the gain of eyeballs.
Those are the toss-ups that the ECB should be making. I don't think that you will magically grow the game as some have suggested by putting domestic T20 FTA, but I don't think it should be automatically dismissed either. It's a game of margins - how much financial shortfall can you put up with compared to how much growth of viewing figures.
Go on, clever people - tear my argument apart. I'm sure I've missed something!
”
No need to, you've done it already with the hypothetical assumptions you've admit!
ITV may want to show two IT20s, it would be great if they did, but we don't know for sure that they do. Is there enough opportunity for them to gain in just showing 2 games a year or would they want more of a commitment? Commercial networks aren't philanthropic, they're not just going to do something for the good of a sport.
Would Sky play hardball for exclusivity on international games? They may do, they may not. Does a FTA partner need to go a partnership with a pay-tv broadcaster?
I've never said once that FTA would be bad thing for cricket, my bone of contention is with those who just think it's an easy as pie thing to put T20 on FTA television (on a network they may not even want it) and automatically think it will get 6/7 million viewers and become the biggest domestic sporting competition in this country





