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Viewers to miss ICC World T20

Both Free to Air and Pay TV decline the price tag of broadcasting rights posed by Indian TV network Star Sports.

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2016-02-25_0104

Australian viewers looks set to miss out on next month’s ICC World T20 Cricket tournament following “enormous” broadcasting fees sought by Indian TV network Star Sports.

Neither FOX Sports nor any Free to Air network has snapped up the rights for the five-week event.

FOX Sports and Nine have both broadcast events in previous years but News Corp reports none has done deals this year.

New Zealand broadcasters have also passed on negotiations.

The tournament will be held in India from March 16 to April 6.

14 Responses

  1. Interestingly, who owns Stars Sports in India? Why that would be Rupert Murdoch, of course. Who owns 50% of Foxtel? Why that would be Rupert Murdoch, of course. Does anyone else see the pattern? Fox Sports should be able to buy the rights dirt cheap, because he is essentially paying himself.

  3. In the end fans miss out – surely at the last minute selling the rights for something is better than not selling them at all. If this sort of thing happens more and more often, as fans get less exposure to sports they like, then they’ll lose interest altogether – not good for any sport.

  5. “In addition to the price being sought by Star for the Australian rights for the World Twenty20 it is believed the successful bidder would be compelled to pay an additional fee, equivalent to about 30 per cent of the purchase price, to cover the tax component of the deal in Dubai, where the ICC is based.”

    In other news, CFO’s of several Australian sporting codes were seen stroking their beards and muttering “hmmmm…” 🙂

  6. Does Cricket Australia have the option of purchasing the streaming rights and putting it on their streaming service? All options need to be exhausted to ensure viewers have someway of watching.

  9. Sporting events broadcast costs will see many slowly disappear. With big player salaries, less advertising dollars, higher arena costs not to mention broadcast costs many big events will just become uneconomical to stage and broadcast.

  10. So what does this mean then for us?

    What about the other competiting countries, did they also pass on the rights?

    It also prooves how money hungry some broadcasters are.

  11. If Fox Sports don’t get the rights than they will be a laughing stock and I am seriously wondering what the hell I am paying for. Whoever is negotiating this needs to pull their finger out and get it done.

      1. If that’s the case, then yes. However Foxtel have been passing on a lot of agreements recently. Do you honestly believe that the EPL was asking an ‘unreasonable’ amount of money that Optus somehow thought was good value?

        More like they are being cheapskates, while at the same time charging us ridiculous money.

        I also plan to cancel as they (their sports channels in general) have lost a lot of competitions. The Premier League, The UEFA Champions League, La Liga, the Big Bash League, and now this. Meanwhile, their ‘blue chip’ broadcasts (AFL/NRL etc) are available on FTA for free, or at least the games worth watching are.

        Yes, what are we paying for?

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