A Narrow Window of Opportunity

Domestic T20 - No teams, mo venues, nothing finalised but you must bid for it on 28th June  a degree of blind faith in the ECB necessary for TV companies. Would you trust 'em!

Tight time-line for new ECB broadcast rights deal decision.

Elizabeth Ammon.

The Times.

Wednesday, 17 May 2017.

PTG 2137-10831.

Live international cricket will return to free-to-air television in the UK in 2020 for the first time in 15 years.  Two England Twenty20 Internationals (T20I) will be shown as part of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) new broadcasting deal, according to the tender document seen by this reporter, which also indicates the time-line between the submission of tenders and the announcement of the successful bidder is very tight indeed.

The document, sent to all leading broadcasters, sets out the bidding process for the rights to all international and domestic cricket in England from 2020-24 and reveals that at least 13 leading matches a year will be shown live and free to air. This will include the two men’s T20Is, the final of the women’s T20 superleague and ten matches in the new eight-team T20 domestic tournament. It had previously been thought that only eight matches out of the 36 in the new tournament would be shown.

The leaked document also reveals that fewer Tests are likely to be played. When the Ashes are contested at home, England would only play the five Tests against Australia, rather than also two "warm-up" Tests against another nation.  Other seasons would feature six Tests — fewer than the normal seven — six One Day Internationals and six T20Is.

The possibility of reducing the number of Test matches in most summers is likely to concern some of the counties who already battle it out to host England’s five-day matches.  Many county grounds rely on Test income to make a profit and fund their players and staff salaries.  In a summer of only five Tests, at least one of Lord’s, the Oval, Edgbaston, Headingley, Old Trafford and Trent Bridge would miss out. Cardiff and Southampton are also desperate to host more matches.

Any pay TV broadcaster that bids for the rights to the new T20 tournament must also bid for the rights to the package that includes international and county cricket. They cannot bid for just one.  As well as making bids for each package, broadcasters must show how they would maximise their reach and attract new audiences to the game.

The document also indicates that within five business days of the deal being signed, 10 per cent of any successful bid must be paid, with the remaining 90 per cent paid in five equal annual instalments.  The board’s decision on which channels will win the tender will be made at 5 pm UK time on 30 June — 48 hours after the deadline for the submission of bids.

But it is the return of England matches to terrestrial television that will most excite cricket fans. The 2005 Ashes series on Channel 4 was the most recent time when international cricket was shown live on a free-to-air channel. It attracted average viewing figures of 2.5 million, peaking at an astonishing 8.4 million, in contrast with viewing figures on pat-TV channel Sky peaking at 0.5 million during the 2015 Ashes.

Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, has revealed his concern that keeping cricket behind a paywall is harming its ability to stay relevant. He said this year that he wanted to see some games return to free-to-air, even if that meant forsaking some money from the pay TV companies. “We have no ambition to be the richest, most irrelevant sport in this country”, he said.

The BBC, which has not shown live cricket since 1999, is the firm favourite to win the competition for free-to-air games, although there will be bids from ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery, who would show it on Quest, their non-subscription channel (PTG 2132-10808, 13 May 2017).

It was revealed in March that Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BCC director-general, has held talks with ECB executives in an attempt to get cricket back on the BBC and has promised to give the new T20 tournament exposure similar to that of the FA Cup (PTG 2089-10578, 29 March 2017). The ECB is known to believe that the prestige attached to the BBC’s name and its online presence will help to broaden the sport’s audience.

Sky has been the sole broadcaster of English cricket since immediately after the 2005 Ashes and pays about £UK70 million ($A122 m) a year for exclusive rights. However, with a new T20 competition included as part of the deal for 2020-24, an acknowledgement that the international rights were undervalued last time round, and that BT Sport is also competing this time, the ECB is expecting the value of the new deal to double if not treble, which may earn it more than a billion over five years ($A1.75 bn).

A 90-page, glossy, hard-backed tender document with Joe Root and Heather Knight, the men’s and women’s Test captains, on the cover was sent out to all radio and television broadcasters who had expressed an interest. All parties have been required to sign a 12-page non-disclosure agreement.

The document sets out the process for submitting bids and a surprisingly tight timetable for the process. Submissions will need to be made to the ECB “no sooner than 0900 hours and no later than 1000 hours, local time in London, England on Wednesday, 28 June, 2017”.

The bids will then be considered by a five-man panel comprising Barry O’Brien, the chairman of Glamorgan, Lord Patel of Bradford, who is an independent director on the ECB board, Sir David Scott, the former Channel 4 boss, Colin Graves, the ECB chairman, and Harrison.