The landscape may well have changed by then.

This seems to me as if its almost a sales pitch. Look ECB this is how we'll cover cricket. Come to us.

That's how I see it too.

The ECB tender is going to be fascinating with SKY being challenged by BT and from what I recall talk some FTA Live cricket rights too.

Michael Clarke is awful please take him of commentary

I wonder if Sky will stomp off in a huff if they don't get all domestic rights from 2020 onwards.

The whole reason they pay what they do is because they have cornered the market. The moment they think they may only get half the cake then maybe they won't want any of it.

Regardless of how much (or little) Sky are left with all their presenters/commentators are getting old together.

Colville, Gower, Botham, Willis, LLoyd, Holding, Allott could all be under threat (I think Mike Holding has already hinted he is calling it a day?)

The others, Atherton, Warne, Knight, Ward, Hussain, and Floyd (the last to present?) would mark a downgrade from the days of total domination of live coverage.

Absolutely no mention of the match on Sky News's Saturday Sport today!

think this comforms ian ward is is in india https://twitter.com/Wardyskycricket/...20674422878208

Wonder what BT will do for commentary next year? Take Channel 9 but try and get Vaughan on it so one of their 'guys' is in the comm box? Also the Sky lot are freelance i heard so maybe athers and nasser?

Telegraph reporting botham might be on his way out of the sky box.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2...h-kp-ricky-po/

How does that fit in with the fact that they have:

- Shared Premier League coverage with Setanta / ESPN / BT
- Shared Champions League coverage with ITV
- Shared (live) Football League coverage with BBC
- Shared FA Cup coverage with BBC / ITV
- Shared Formula 1 coverage with BBC / C4
- Shared US Masters golf coverage with BBC
- Shared US Open tennis coverage with Eurosport
- Shared European Cup rugby coverage with BT
- Shared Aviva Premiership rugby coverage with Setanta / ESPN

All premium sports rights are of value to Sky. It would be far, far worse for them to lose 100% of their cricket rights than just a proportion of them (assuming they think the price for what they retained was worthwhile).

There is a difference.
Those sports governing bodies have never allowed Sky full access. Who knows how hard they've lobbied for it, they haven't managed it.

Sky have had cricket to themselves for 10 years now (13 by the end of the contract) its their sport...
So it is interesting how they will react when they lose some rights.

That's not right.

In all of the below examples they had exclusive live coverage prior to signing deals where live coverage was shared:

- Premier League
- Football League
- European club rugby (albeit different governing body)
- Premiership rugby union

Whilst it may well be "interesting" to see how they would react, ultimately they are a business which will take a business decision.

They aren't going to voluntarily damage their business even more if they can avoid doing so.

However, notwithstanding the above, it is of course entirely possible that the ECB might do an exclusive deal with BT in any case.

As ever, you speak perfect sense, mlt11. As further evidence supporting your (utterly common-sense-driven) analysis, Sky's head of cricket did an interview with this month's Cricketer magazine in which he stated that Sky would always bid for all the packages they could, but they wouldn't walk away from the sport if the ECB decided to add an FTA element to the packages.

I also wonder if the ECB would go with BT as opposed to Sky. Do we know the number of homes with BT Sport vs Sky Sports? The ECB get enough stick as it is for not having anything on FTA, would they really further reduce the number of people watching England cricket? Sky's cash has been sufficient to provide for a well-run England team, well-paid players, and to prop up the county game. I would hazard a guess it has helped pay for some of the improvements at the various grounds in recent years. Presumably BT would have to blow Sky's bid out of the water for the ECB to even consider it.

A lot of home will casually or partially have BT Sport, as an add on to their Broadband.

For BT I imagine cricket would be an attractive addition to their sports portfolio, as their summer schedule is relatively empty

If that were the case I'm not sure they'd be using Kevin Pietersen.

BT's Sales Pitch will be the bid that they make. They would have covered live sport for 7 years by the time the new rights come into effect, I'm sure that'll be sufficient .

It wouldn't surprise me if the India tour was to be his last, the rumours have been about for a while and the demands of the Durham role would create a mutually beneficial time to call it a 'stepping away' from Sky as supposed to a 'sacking'

It then wouldn't surprise me if he appeared on BT next winter for the Ashes in a neat fitting one off tour

But only BTS1 is free under most of their BT Infinity contracts, as that is all my dad still gets free. They have increasing been putting good stuff like Moto GP, CL and Europa League on their other channels you have to pay for.

Cricinfo and espn channel in India got ganguly, trott and nick Compton working for them this series.
So guessing trott won't be doing the verdict considering he will be in Bangalore for the series.

I doubt the ECB will care that much if the money is right, despite the news reports. If that was there was any real concern it would have stayed on FTA in the first place.

Personally I think the rights are going to be split, a small selection for FTA and rest split between SKY and BT like the PL is today. Maybe more televised county cricket matches but split between broadcasters, that way there will be the wider reach they apparently desire.

Peak rating for first day of Australia v South Africa on BT was 12,000.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...kyo-talks.html

I think with Sky and BT both bidding they will easy cover the premium Sky now pay to keep it off free TV.

Will be interesting that if they do offer to free TV will it be a proper free channel or only one of the free ones BT or Sky offer. As if those as we see with European football viewers would be minimal.

Could easily be a three way split Sky, BT and free. Either domestic vs International or even by individual competition. As we see with what ECB are looking for with the new city based T20 league thar is the format they expect big bucks for.

Here's how the money has increased in the past 18 or so years.

1999-2002 - live rights shared between Channel 4 and Sky - £103 million

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sport/cricket/194168.stm

2003 - 2005 - shared between Channel 4 and Sky - £150 million

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/...ry/106481.html

2006 - 2009 - live on Sky only/highlights on Channel 5 - £220 million

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/4097137.stm

2014 - 2017 - live on Sky only/highlights on Channel 5 - £280 million

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/...ry/551654.html

I appreciate some of those numbers may not be exactly right, and hopefully someone who knows what he is talking about, like mlt11, can correct any mistakes. But assuming they are roughly correct, the money the ECB receives has grown substantially as the live rights increasingly went to Sky.

We can get misty eyed about 9 million people watching the climax of the 2005 Ashes live, but the reality is live Test cricket even on FTA would not draw that many viewers. Three days of every home test match are played when most people are at work. If England are playing somewhere like Australia or India/Bangladesh/Middle East (for Pakistan) a lot of the games are either in the middle of the night or very early in the morning. And watching the full six hours of play per day, in a sport where even the purists would admit there are passages where not a lot is happening, is not something many fans will commit to. Many will dip in now and then, so for an advertiser (who won't know in advance when the match is going to be at peak excitement) they aren't going to expect more than a couple of million viewers average even on FTA. Would the BBC or ITV/Channel 4/5 really be willing to spend anything close to the £70 million a year for the same live rights Sky now have? I just don't see how that would make sense.

I think there are some major differences between the PL split between Sky and ITV and doing something similar for cricket. I don't see the ECB splitting up home test series so e.g. Sky get some matches and BT get others. Would a deal whereby Sky or BT get the live rights to a home series, with e.g. Channel 4 having one live home test work? Maybe, I could see that.

Four day county cricket has so little appeal I just don't see anyone bidding much if anything for it. You only have to look at the pitiful crowds for most games to see that with the England test players turning out for their counties so rarely, and not many overseas players still in their primes, that there's just not enough interest. Maybe BT would do it just to get their foot in the door and build some goodwill within the sport, but the viewing figures would be negligible.

Don't see england international games going FTA, but reckon a few T20 international and domestic competition might go FTA.
especially with the promises ECB been making to the Counties.
Counties want some FTA coverage and they really call the shot in the political circles in the ECB considering they vote the chairman in and the fact they are the ones ECB need to get the new T20 competition in.
most likely the rights will be split between Pay and FTA, but not like the past where FTA had most of the game, this Time Sky or BT will have majority of the games with FTA having a few games.
think one game a round from the T20 competition and a weekly highlights show for the domestic game+ international games on FTA is very likely with the rest on pay.
Think even Sky are open to this now with Allot and the press discussing this option on Sky cricket writers programme.
Suspect ECB will get more money from the next rights and a more better FTA deal to keep the Counties happy.

If I were to make a guess then paying around 350M + a shared bid with ITV will probably be what ECB are looking for with ITV 4 showing a game a week live and a proper highlights show as well with the pay network showing the rest.
although it might not even be ITV if ECB are happy with Sky sports mix and Showcase.

isn't it telling that on Sky Sport mix majority of the major sports/games have mostly been the cricket.
England vs pakistan odi, England vs India test day 1, ban test day 1 and the odi as well.

Really the key to how the rights are given will be on what ECB promised the counties to get the new T20 competition and with them making claims that the new competition will bring more money and have more of a reach than the current competition, they would really need the new rights deal to meet the promises or claims.

Doubt the counties will be happy if they went to a 9 or 8 team T20 competition with them getting less money or the same amount of money and less or the same amount of people watching the games.

suspect the next tv deal will be crucial in determine if the New T20 competition even takes place and if Sky or BT want a big T20 competition they will need to pay for it and do what ever it is required from ECB to make it happen, which probably explains why Sky are now more open to them not getting all the cricket with some going FTA.

Anyone able to offer a comparison with Sky?

I tried finding an average for a comparable match on last year's BARB data but couldn't see any Australian tests in the channel Top 10s.