Broadcasters ask CA: what did we pay for?

Is a Boxing Day Test the same if it is not at the MCG, is the BBL worth price paid if even best state players aren’t available?

Virat Kohli and his Indian team give broadcasters a chance to get value for money in their TV rights deal Picture: AFP

If a Boxing Day Test is held at the Adelaide Oval with crowd restrictions is it the same marquee match broadcasters bought in their billion-dollar deal?

If a full BBL season runs with the best local players occupied in quarantine bubbles for other duties is it the same shining bauble that attracted Fox Cricket and Seven?

Cricket Australia’s confidence it can deliver a full fixture this summer has done little to ease concerns of broadcasters who argue the 2020-21 fixture is not what they signed up for. Both will argue they are owed some form of refund or compensation.

Seven West Media chief executive James Warburton launched a full-scale attack on the administration earlier this week and Fox Cricket shared the frustrations.

Cricket Australia believes the broadcasters cannot complain if it can deliver five Tests, the BBL tournaments, women’s internationals and short-form cricket.

On Wednesday the Afghanistan Test, presumed abandoned, reappeared with talk it would be played from December 7 in Perth.

While everybody craves certainty, the ever-shifting — and encroaching — pandemic restrictions make it difficult to deliver. On top of the difficulty is the eye-watering expense of establishing biosecurity hubs, booking exclusive hotels, relocating the game lock, stock and first drop.

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Under current planning the BBL will find itself competing for local talent when the best players could be in hubs for a white-ball series against India, an Australia A red-ball squad and the Test team.

“Who is left after that?” frustrated television executives ask.

Cricket should be having a good time of it in comparison to other sports. It doesn’t have to keep 18 Australian rules sides one step ahead of border closures and broader stupidities. It doesn’t have to convince soccer or league teams to migrate for the domestic season.

When COVID-19 first hit and the country came to a shuddering halt the two major football codes took two very different approaches. The NRL banged its fist on the table and announced it would start up again on a certain date no matter what and if the broadcasters wanted to tag along they were welcome. The AFL took a more cautious and consultative approach, but both got their games up and running because they were bleeding money and had no time to waste.

Both renegotiated their broadcast deals at the same time.

This should have been the year for the billion-dollar broadcast deal to deliver for Seven and Fox Cricket. Hopefully it still is.

The 2018-19 summer when the pair shared international rights coincided with the absence of Steve Smith and David Warner.

The side was in a better place last summer but neither Pakistan nor New Zealand could deliver a competitive Test match.

India is due back this year with a team in its pomp and the Australians are keen to make amends for the last visit when they did not have Smith and Warner available.

That series should happen even if the atmosphere is diminished and the backdrops different — it seems more than likely that the Boxing Day Test will be held in Adelaide, not Melbourne.

The dilution of talent available to the BBL is, however, what really hurts. The tournament was at its peak when the rights deals were signed but has fallen away since.

The broadcasters need some certainty so they can build marketing campaigns that will go to air during the football finals, attract subscribers, lure advertisers and get some sense of where they need their trucks and commentators and cameras to be.

“At the moment, you pick up the paper every day and you read four or five different things,” Seven’s Warburton said earlier this week.

“You have got the Australian T20 and one-day captain saying one thing, you have got the coach saying another, you have got BBL franchises talking about no international players — or (more) grade cricketers.

“What I’d like to know is what is the season ahead. We paid a massive price for the cricket – an Indian summer is as valuable as an Ashes summer.”