Australia’s Bangladesh tour starts without TV coverage at home

The first match of an Australian cricket tour of Bangladesh took place yesterday without live television or streaming coverage in Australia, something that has happened only once or twice in recent decades.

Australian media reported that talks between the sellers of the rights and broadcasters, including pay-television broadcaster Foxtel and free-to-air broadcasters, failed to produce a deal.

The absence of some star players for Australia and competition for audiences with the Olympics were reported as having weakened broadcaster appetite for the rights.

The international rights for cricket in Bangladesh are currently sold by Bangladeshi agency Ban Tech, which acquired them along with domestic rights for Bangladesh Cricket Board content in May.

The BCB and Ban Tech normally make live coverage of Bangladeshi cricket available to stream for free via YouTube channel RabbitholeBD Sports in markets where rights deals have not been agreed. However, live coverage of yesterday’s match was geo-blocked for Australian YouTube users.

RabbitholeBD Sports is operated by Bangladeshi pay-television broadcaster Gazi TV, one of the BCB’s domestic media rights partners.

Cricket Australia’s website has a short video highlights package of the game for Australian audiences. A report on the website said: “Unfortunately, a standoff between the Bangladesh rights holders and Australian broadcasters has led to the opening match of the five-game series being unavailable to watch in Australia.” It said an update would be provided if a rights deal for the remaining matches of the tour is agreed.

Yesterday’s match was the first of a five-match T20 tour. The second match is today and the others follow on Friday, Saturday and Monday. All start at 6pm in Dhaka/10pm AEST.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the last Australian overseas tour match that was not broadcast at home was in 1994, during a Test series in Pakistan. Cricket Australia’s website said one recent match had suffered the same fate, although in unusual circumstances – it was a T20 match in 2018 against the UAE that was supposed to be a practice match but was upgraded to a full international at the last minute.

Foxtel would have been favourites to pick up the Bangladesh tour rights. It is the biggest cricket broadcaster in the market and is Cricket Australia’s domestic media-rights partner.

A couple of recent cricket rights negotiations in Australia have went down to the wire. Foxtel agreed last-minute deals for a tour of the West Indies last month, and the World Test Championship final in June.

Australia’s media-rights market has been experiencing something of a rebound recently, due to the launch of several new sports streaming platforms. But cricket has not yet been a target for the streamers. This blackout and the other late deals for underline broader difficulties in the Australian rights market. Long-term decline in the linear television business and the pandemic have weakened the traditional buyers of sports rights and by extension competition for rights.

FanCode gets rights

Streaming platform FanCode picked up exclusive media rights in India to the Australia tour of Bangladesh, in a deal agreed between FanCode’s parent company Dream Sports and Ban Tech.

FanCode will stream all five matches from the tour on a paid basis, via a Match Pass and a Tour Pass. Its coverage will include customisable data overlays and match highlights.

Gazi TV, T Sports and BTV are showing the tour in Bangladesh, having agreed sublicensing deals with Ban Tech.

In January, the BCB raised $2.1m from its sale of broadcast rights to Bangladesh’s home series against West Indies.

A tour of Bangladesh by England scheduled in September and October has been postponed due to “complications around Covid-19 protocols”. Pakistan and Sri Lanka will complete tours of Bangladesh in November and December.

You Might Also Like

Comments