Cricket Australia defends Seven partnership as it seals new seven-year broadcast deal

Cricket Australia has defended its decision to extend its broadcast deal with Seven West Media until the end of the decade, as the free-to-air network shut down claims it had “trashed” the sport and its reputation over the past three years.

CA chief executive Nick Hockley said the governing body will pay “millions” of its own legal costs for a now terminated court case instigated by its broadcast partner, but said the new seven-year deal with Foxtel and the free-to-air network was a “reset” of the relationship.

Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley, Foxtel boss Patrick Delany, Adam Gilchrist and Seven’s director of sport Lewis Martin at the SCG announcing a new $1.5 billion deal.Credit: Brook Mitchell

“We’ve said...some of those comments previously were disappointing, but we’ve moved on,” Hockley said. “The reset around the BBL with 43 games - it does address some of the concerns and those concerns were around some of the matches that weren’t maybe on at the best time.”

Hockley’s comments were made as the sporting body confirmed earlier reports by this masthead that incumbent partners, News Corp-controlled Foxtel and Seven West Media, had signed a new seven-year agreement.

The new deal, worth $1.5 billion over seven years, gives Seven the ability to broadcast games on its online website 7Plus from 2025, while Foxtel will continue to broadcast the one-day internationals exclusively, as well as local Test matches, T20s, and the Big Bash League and Women’s Big Bash League matches. The BBL will be reduced to 43 games per season.

“It does mean that we have we’ve taken a bit of pressure out of an otherwise very congested calendar where different formats are competing,” Hockley said.

Seven, who sued CA for allegedly breaching its contract by reducing the quality and standards of the BBL and repeatedly slammed the sporting body for its failure to deliver on expectations, dropped its court action as the deal was struck. But Seven’s director of sport Lewis Martin said the company never damaged the sport’s reputation and had no plans to publicly talk down the game in future.

“We haven’t trashed cricket,” Martin said. “We’ve had our issues with Cricket Australia and we’ve reset. They were challenging times...but our love the sport and love for cricket... our strategy overall is to build a suite of Australia’s premier sports across 52 weeks of the year.”

Seven will pay 13 per cent less – about $65 million per year - for its portion of the deal and will increase that figure if CA meets a certain set of benchmarks with the BBL. Foxtel will increase the amount it pays the body, due to the reduction from Seven. Foxtel boss Patrick Delany said he wouldn’t comment on the amount paid, but sources close to the deal believe it is an increase of about $30 million per year.

“The new deal will include improvements, including a refreshed Big Bash League format, with a reduced schedule of 43 games that will allow for a greater proportion of prime-time matches and stronger alignment with school holidays,” Delany said.

Paramount, which was widely considered the preferred bidder early in the negotiations, said it never made a “formal bid” and had not actively pursued the rights in recent weeks. This decision coincided with the appearance of CA board director Richard Freudenstein, Foxtel boss Patrick Delany and Seven director Ryan Stokes and Lachlan Murdoch’s Christmas party. Sources close to the process said Paramount had asked the process to be put on pause until mid-January when executives returned from leave, and had put in a non-binding indicative offer.

Others close to the deal said it wasn’t this simple. CA and Foxtel executives continued to pursue a partnership with Paramount’s free-to-air partner Network 10 over concerns it could not work with Seven. Paramount refused to do a deal that did not include its streaming service, Paramount+ because it believed it would lose tens of millions of dollars if it did not share the rights across its platforms.

“It became clear following consistent discussions with Cricket Australia that our objectives and views on the future presentation of the sport and its value were not aligned,” a Paramount Australia spokesperson said. “Paramount congratulates the successful consortium and wishes them and Cricket Australia well for the future.”

CA’s initial courting of Paramount and Ten, followed by talks with Nine Entertainment, the owner of this masthead, appeared to be headed off by fears, played upon by Seven and Foxtel, that Australia’s third commercial network was not a safe bet in terms of audience size. But other factors - such as a potentially costly court dispute with Seven, and consistency of coverage for viewers were also factors.

Nine’s ability to compete for the free-to-air rights to the cricket diminished after the network beat Seven to reach terms to cover the Olympics last week, a $300 million deal that will complement its existing rights to the Australian Open tennis each January.

Hockley said the deal was an important commercial outcome for Australian cricket.

“Our priority was to run a fair process and all the major networks took part. We wouldn’t have engaged unless we were kind of serious about giving everybody the opportunity. But ultimately, we’re just delighted to be extending our partnership.”

“We’re over $1.5 billion and what it does, it really gives the game certainty moving forward, and it gives us certainty against our new strategic plan. We’ll work with all the stakeholders across cricket about where we invest.”

CA, Foxtel and Seven’s agreement is the last major deal to be completed before the government overhauls its “anti-siphoning scheme”, a law that aims to protect significant sporting events like cricket from being put behind a paywall.

The major sporting codes want the list slimmed down or removed altogether, which would allow them to negotiate the highest dollar figure possible. The free-to-air networks want the current laws to apply to streaming providers like Amazon Prime Video (currently Foxtel is the only streaming provider prevented from putting events such as the AFL and NRL finals behind a paywall).