‘Needs more oxygen’: Call for Amazon to share women’s World Cup with free-to-air network

Amazon should simulcast Australia’s matches for the upcoming women’s Twenty20 World Cup with a free-to-air network to maximise its audience, according to the broadcast expert who oversaw the WBBL’s rise to the fourth most-watched sporting league in the country.

Prime Video has declined to release audience figures for the just-completed men’s Twenty20 World Cup in the United States and the Caribbean, amid anecdotal reports of limited interest in Australia for the global event at the height of the football season.

Katy Perry with the triumphant Australian team after they won the T20 World Cup final at the MCG in 2020.Credit: Getty Images

The women’s tournament is due to take place in Bangladesh in October, forcing a reduction in the length of the WBBL and a delay in its start date, and leaving a gap for cricket’s Australian broadcasters Foxtel and Seven after the end of the AFL and NRL finals.

Stephanie Beltrame, Cricket Australia’s former head of commercial and broadcast, believes Amazon should consider simulcasting Australia’s World Cup matches on a free-to-air network to help raise awareness of the streaming provider’s investment in live sport – and maintain momentum for women’s sport in this country.

“Women’s sport needs more oxygen,” Beltrame said. “Everyone talks about ‘it’s got momentum’, but you still have to keep amplifying it. There’s still a need for that. [Free-to-air] would be helpful in the short term.

“It’s like a child. Even though there is great momentum, it’s still walking, and you can’t necessarily let go right now and it’s going to run. It’s got the right structures, the right set-up, but you’ve got to continue to nurture it a bit more until it is at that point where it can be totally self-reliant.

“You’ve got to do more to keep it growing, you can’t just do it bit by bit. You need others to take the risk. CA has taken risk and investment, and some broadcasters have too, but it’s just relying on everyone to go that extra mile to give it that lift.”

Amazon reportedly paid about $80 million per year for the Australian rights to show all global cricket events from 2024 to 2027, and on Monday also announced its acquisition of the rights to the Major League Cricket T20 tournament being played in the United States this month.

“The feedback from cricket fans in Australia for our first major event, ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, has been really positive and we are delighted to expand our live sports offering through the Major League Cricket,” said Hushidar Kharas, head of Prime Video Australia and New Zealand.

Prime first got involved in Australian cricket by co-producing documentaries about the men’s Test team, commissioning two follow-up series after the first in 2020 became the most watched sports documentary in the streaming service’s history.

However, the men’s T20 World Cup struggled for traction in winter, not helped by a broadcast schedule heavily weighted towards the Indian market, with marquee matches, including the final, being played at 10.30am local time in the Caribbean.

Despite this scheduling, Indian audiences for the tournament were down relative to last year’s 50-over World Cup, although the 54 million-strong streaming audience for the final kept watching until the finish, unlike the larger (59 million) but more transient audience that saw Australia overwhelm India in the ODI decider in Ahmedabad.

There is no Australian precedent for Amazon sharing live sport with free-to-air networks, but the company had previously done a deal with Channel Four in the United Kingdom to show the 2021 Women’s US Open tennis final.

Under the previous ICC broadcast rights deal for Australia, Foxtel on-sold Australia’s ODI World Cup games, plus the semis and final of each tournament, to Nine (owners of this masthead). T20 World cup matches, however, were exclusive to Foxtel unless played in Australia, as was the case in 2022.

Entering its 10th season, the WBBL is behind only the AFL, NRL and men’s BBL as the most watched domestic leagues in the country – well and truly in front of its equivalent women’s competitions in the football codes.

The league will begin on October 27 with the Adelaide Strikers hosting the Brisbane Heat at Adelaide Oval. The league will also continue with its “stadium series” of matches on major grounds, including games at the Gabba, the SCG and the MCG in November.

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