How long can BT and Sky share international cricket?

SAM MORSHEAD: Sky Sports missed out on the Ashes this winter, adding to cricket fans’ TV bill. Has it been worth it?

BT or not BT, that is the question. The broadcaster has made significant forays into top-class sport in recent years, acquiring full Champions League and Europa League football rights, a slice of Premier League games plus elite European and English domestic rugby rights, as it battles Sky to be the major force in British sports television.

And this winter they are taking on cricket. In a big way.

In 2016, BT signed an £80m, five-year contract with Cricket Australia to screen extensive coverage of the Baggy Greens’ home internationals, the Big Bash and Women’s Big Bash.

It was seen as the first step of a major challenge to the established status quo; a market dominated by Sky, who have led the way in 21st-century cricket broadcasting and elevated standards to impressively high levels.

But how have BT fared so far? Will they achieve the standing in the game enjoyed by their predecessor? And how long will cricket fans tolerate needing multiple subscriptions to follow their team?

THE STORY SO FAR

In its 10 days of Ashes coverage to the time of print, BT have been largely assured, aided by the vast experience of the Sunset & Vine production team behind them – the same company which provided the engine room for Channel Four’s much-heralded broadcasts in the early to mid-2000s and has steered Channel Five’s highlights shows very capably in the years since.

There have been teething problems, as can be expected with a new commentary line-up, but for those who paid the extra fee to be able to watch their team in the most famous series in world cricket there hasn’t been much about which to grumble.

There hasn’t been the familiar face of David Gower to greet viewers of an evening, while Ian Ward and his mobile-analysis board are noticeable by their absence, but BT have combined trustworthy soundbite technicians with one or two astute pundits to present a very watchable product.

So to ask why fans in the UK are being forced into watching BT Sport is not a criticism of BT Sport itself. It is a smaller detail of a much wider debate revolving around cricket rights, the spread and cost thereof and the subsequent impact to the consumer that has been discussed by ECB suits, TV executives and Joe Bloke in the Dog and Duck for months if not years.

SO WHOSE ACTION IS BETTER?

For English viewers, there is little question that BT have the far more attractive cricketing product between November and February.

Let’s face it, Sky’s offering – the one‑sided series in India and New Zealand, and the Ram Slam (South Africa’s T20 tournament) – pales in comparison to the combination of the Ashes and the Big Bash.

But is providing thrilling content for a third of a year enough to keep people interested?

Once the T20 Tri-series involving England, Australia and New Zealand decamps across the Tasman in February, BT will have to convince one-off subscribers that their pounds are being well spent.

The next cricket available on BT is likely to be the Caribbean Premier League, whose fixture list is not yet confirmed but is played between June and August.

The next international cricket? South Africa’s one-day tour down under in October.

In between, normal service resumes at Sky over the spring and summer – with a full international and domestic programme following England’s trip to New Zealand.

As it stands, there is no guarantee of BT subscribers being able to watch England live again, with the next Ashes tour pencilled in for 2021/22, the year after Cricket Australia’s deal with the broadcaster is due to end.

It won’t be easy to convince fans to hang around.

Yet at the same time, this winter will leave Sky with a job on their hands to retain some of their cricketing audience.

In July, their channels were rebranded and repackaged in an effort to target specific audiences. Instead of Sky Sports 1, Sky Sports 2 and so on, specific platforms were given to certain sports including football, cricket and golf.

Within six months of the new format being launched, Sky Sports Cricket has been left to fend for itself with limited live action at anti-social hours. There have been attempts made to fill the gap for subscribers who pay the one-sport price of £40 per month, but half a dozen admittedly illuminating documentaries and debate from pundits in a studio 10,000 miles from the action may well not suffice.

HOW DOES IT AFFECT FANS?

In theory, the competition should drive product quality to brave new levels.

Instead, could BT and Sky inadvertently be pushing viewers into tuning out?

Sky’s viewing figures for the Premier League last season (2016/17) certainly reinforced the notion that the modern audience is much less loyal than its predecessors, as they dropped 14 per cent year on year. And in this respect, cricket is no different to football.

The use of illegal streams has risen significantly year on year – a BBC survey of Premier League fans last summer suggested as many as a third watch games via such online services – and cricket has been all too aware of the potential for its fans to resort to similar means for years.

In 2012, the then-ECB chairman Giles Clarke said “pirate broadcasters are the biggest danger to cricket because they take money out of the game without commercial benefit to the sport”.

Two years previously, then-commercial director John Perera said those who watched streams “are diddling cricket”.

Yet watching cricket on television has never been more expensive. For armchair cricket fans to see all England Test matches in 2017, a basic £49.50-a-month Sky Sports package needed to be combined with a BT subscription, which would set you back a further £22.99 a month. Total bill = £72.49.

Remember, up until 2005 you could watch most of the English summer Tests on free-to-air broadcaster Channel Four.

All the while, catching up on events at the ground via snippets on social media is getting easier and easier – and cricket’s Twitterati can do so on a whim.

The host nation and rights-paying broadcasters routinely post major match incidents on their feeds, leaving those who are happy just to dip in and out of the action with no need to subscribe elsewhere.

No need to spend £80 a month.

How, then, can the younger generation of cricket fan be expected to spend more and more on following the sport they love, especially in an era where 20-somethings are being told by estate agents that the reason they can’t afford a house is because of their excessive outlay on avocados and coffee?

How can any generation be expected to keep on paying more for what is, in base terms, the same output?

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Sky have 12.8m subscribers in the UK and Ireland, and BT Sport boast more than 5m customers, direct and wholesale, but they aren’t the only movers in the marketplace.

Facebook made their first play for cricket coverage in 2017, ultimately failing in their attempt to buy the streaming rights to the IPL as their $600m bid was trumped by Star India’s gluttonous $2.55bn offer for both TV and digital.

Amazon have recently acquired the UK rights to all ATP Tour tennis events with the exception of the Grand Slams, leaving Sky all-but empty-handed, and in 2016 Twitter completed a deal to show real-time highlights to a selection of Premier League football matches.

And then there is the rejuvenated BBC.

Auntie reportedly benefited from favourable status at the ECB to secure a slice of the governing body’s £1.1bn broadcast auction earlier this summer.

From 2020, the Beeb will show two England T20 internationals and 10 matches from the new T20 competition annually – the first time free-to-air live cricket has been available in the UK in 15 years. Come the next ECB rights auction, there is no knowing who will hold the trump card.

Still, like Sky, BT Sport show no intention of giving up the chase, even though they lost out to their rivals for the next five-year cycle.

In an interview with SportsPro in November, head of sport Simon Green seemed adamant that his channel has staying power.

“We are an organisation that was launched four years ago into the world of sports rights and television coverage of sport. Clearly, it is a long-term aspiration for us to be in this world,” he said.

“We are here for that long journey and there are sets of rights that we will pick up along the way.

“We don’t, however, see any specific acquisition as a battle won or a battle lost against anyone else in the marketplace.”

Perhaps.

But BT and Sky are both in a battle to win over a changing digital audience – men and women with deep interests in sport but shallowing pockets and a blooming relationship with new media.