Player’s bouncer at Nine highlights threat for it holding onto broadcast rights
Battle to hold onto rights
The unexpected entry of stand-in Australian cricket captain George Bailey into Channel Nine’s attempts to hold onto the Australian broadcasting rights has underlined the network faces its toughest battle to regain them after three decades.
Bailey went on the offensive yesterday after Nine’s head of sport Steve Crawley complained about Cricket Australia’s decision to rest batting powerhouse Dave Warner, captain Michael Clarke and dropping Mike Hussey altogether – saying viewers wanted to see them in action.
Bailey took the extraordinary step – for a player – to say Crawley’s comments were an attempt to drive down the price of the next five year’s worth of broadcasting rights being negotiated at the moment.
George Bailey is not Australia’s “stand in” captain. He is the full time captain of the Australia Twenty20 team.
The universe will implode if anyone other than Nine broadcasts Cricket.
Wow $550-700 million over the next six months…. that’s GREAT value compared to the $320 over seven years.
comma missing?
Hi Lucy-Loo,
It was slightly ambiguous – the pursuit will take six months, not the length of the contract. We’ve updated it slightly to make it clearer.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Patrick – George Bailey is stand in captain of one day team. Yes he is captain of the Twenty20 team. Michael Clarke leads the one day and test teams. cheers
Marcus – Mumbrella
Would SBS have a stab at the cricket? Channel 4 in the UK presented great cricket coverage when I was over there (similar channel)?
Or are they committed to soccer and cycling and would be able to handle the cricket as well?
wouldn’t*
“The universe will implode if anyone other than Nine broadcasts Cricket.”
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the universe is much bigger than ch9…..unlike their debt level
@Wayne – channel 9 dont have any more debt.