Star Sports and Cricket Australia are close to finalizing a historical broadcasting deal in the next couple of days which will be worth 360 million Australian dollars (250 million USD) and will be the biggest ever deal for the rights of overseas cricket matches in the history of the game.
Star Sports has agreed to pay the amount for a period of 7 years during which Australia will be playing at least 20 test matches at home against India and England. The amount, which converts to about 2000 crore INR, is triple the amount that was paid to Cricket Australia by their previous Asian broadcasting partner Sony.
Sony was paying Cricket Australia 110 million Australian dollars for 6 years, with the deal open for negotiations if an extra number of matches were played, but the negotiations didn’t take place eventually.
The reason why Star Sports went big with the Australian cricket rights was that they had some money left in the purse which they had allocated for themselves to buy both the TV and digital rights of the IPL. Eventually, the IPL rights went so costly that Disney Star was able to buy only the TV rights and lost the digital rights to Viacom.
Another reason why Star Sports showed interest was because the test matches played by India on the Australian turf gained a fair bit of popularity recently after Rishabh Pant’s heroics in the Gabba test to win India a test series in Australia in 2020. It’s a much-talked-about test series in India, with 2 or 3 documentaries being made on it already.
Rishabh Pant's innings in the Gabba Test match in 2020/21 Border Gavaskar Trophy have played a major role in Cricket Australia securing 2000+ Crores rights deal with Disney Star. (According to Sydney Morning herald)
Advertisement— CricketMAN2 (@ImTanujSingh) July 24, 2022
Star Sports and Cricket Australia should get the deal finalized in a couple of days
The deal between Star Sports and Cricket Australia which will be signed in a couple of days will come into effect next year and will not only include the international matches played by the Australian men’s team at home but also the matches played by the Australian women’s team at home, the men’s BBL and the women’s BBL.
The deal is for 7 years, making it a deal worth 285 crores per year. It is the highest amount paid by an overseas broadcaster to an international cricket board and it testifies to the strength of the Indian market in the cricket world.
Quite amazing.. Cricket Australia now making more out of their TV deal in India than they did their entire domestic deals when Nine last held the domestic rights. Shows the power of the Indian market.. https://t.co/1EOdMardjO
— Richard Craill (@Craillsy) July 24, 2022
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