Post by PureOldGold on Aug 5, 2008 10:06:55 GMT -1
The ECB has announced a four-year extension to its existing television contract with BSkyB and Channel Five in a deal worth around £300 million (US$600 million).
The current contract expires at the end of next summer, and the new agreement will keep all live home English cricket at Sky until the end of 2013. Channel Five retains the rights to show highlights shortly after the close of each day's play.
"We held extensive talks with all broadcasters and were determined to be as flexible as possible in terms of our packaging and scheduling to allow the maximum number of bids for cricket from all areas of the broadcast industry," ECB chairman Giles Clarke said. "The ECB recognise and are grateful for Sky Sports' loyalty to the sport - both at home and when the England team tour overseas.'"
It had been expected that BBC and Channel 4 might submit rival bids, but in the event neither showed interest. Channel 4 were aggrieved at losing out in 2005 and the company is in a less robust position that it was four years ago.
The BBC's decision to stay out of the process left Sky effectively unchallenged. When BSkyB was awarded the contract at the end of 2005, the ECB, with Clarke at the forefront of negotiations, was lambasted in many quarters for not keeping broadcasts on terrestrial television, but it is likely to get a much easier ride this time because of the lack of interest from mainstream broadcasters.
At the weekend, Scyld Berry, the editor of Wisden, wrote in the Daily Telegraph: "Children in far more than half the households in this country will grow up without ever having seen [Andrew] Flintoff, or any other England cricketer, perform live. (And so uncool is it to watch highlights that fewer than a million watch those on [Channel 5]). How can any sport prosper when its role-models perform in purdah? No doubt the ECB will blame the BBC for not making a substantial bid. But the game's authorities should negotiate the best bid, not the biggest."
The new Sky deal will include the Stanford quadrangular Twenty20 tournament in England as well as the EPL when it starts in 2010.
© Cricinfo
The current contract expires at the end of next summer, and the new agreement will keep all live home English cricket at Sky until the end of 2013. Channel Five retains the rights to show highlights shortly after the close of each day's play.
"We held extensive talks with all broadcasters and were determined to be as flexible as possible in terms of our packaging and scheduling to allow the maximum number of bids for cricket from all areas of the broadcast industry," ECB chairman Giles Clarke said. "The ECB recognise and are grateful for Sky Sports' loyalty to the sport - both at home and when the England team tour overseas.'"
It had been expected that BBC and Channel 4 might submit rival bids, but in the event neither showed interest. Channel 4 were aggrieved at losing out in 2005 and the company is in a less robust position that it was four years ago.
The BBC's decision to stay out of the process left Sky effectively unchallenged. When BSkyB was awarded the contract at the end of 2005, the ECB, with Clarke at the forefront of negotiations, was lambasted in many quarters for not keeping broadcasts on terrestrial television, but it is likely to get a much easier ride this time because of the lack of interest from mainstream broadcasters.
At the weekend, Scyld Berry, the editor of Wisden, wrote in the Daily Telegraph: "Children in far more than half the households in this country will grow up without ever having seen [Andrew] Flintoff, or any other England cricketer, perform live. (And so uncool is it to watch highlights that fewer than a million watch those on [Channel 5]). How can any sport prosper when its role-models perform in purdah? No doubt the ECB will blame the BBC for not making a substantial bid. But the game's authorities should negotiate the best bid, not the biggest."
The new Sky deal will include the Stanford quadrangular Twenty20 tournament in England as well as the EPL when it starts in 2010.
© Cricinfo
