“We’ve said...some of those comments previously were disappointing,but we’ve moved on,” Hockley said. “The reset around the BBL with 43 games - it does address some of the concerns and those concerns were around some of the matches that weren’t maybe on at the best time.”
Hockley’s comments were made asthe sporting body confirmed earlier reports by this masthead that incumbent partners,News Corp-controlled Foxtel and Seven West Media,had signed a new seven-year agreement.
The new deal,worth $1.5 billion over seven years,gives Seven the ability to broadcast games on its online website 7Plus from 2025,while Foxtel will continue to broadcast the one-day internationals exclusively,as well as local Test matches,T20s,and the Big Bash League and Women’s Big Bash League matches. The BBL will be reduced to 43 games per season.
“It does mean that we have we’ve taken a bit of pressure out of an otherwise very congested calendar where different formats are competing,” Hockley said.
Seven,who sued CA for allegedly breaching its contract by reducing the quality and standards of the BBL and repeatedly slammed the sporting body for its failure to deliver on expectations,dropped its court action as the deal was struck. But Seven’s director of sport Lewis Martin said the company never damaged the sport’s reputation and had no plans to publicly talk down the game in future.
“We haven’t trashed cricket,” Martin said. “We’ve had our issues with Cricket Australia and we’ve reset. They were challenging times...but our love the sport and love for cricket... our strategy overall is to build a suite of Australia’s premier sports across 52 weeks of the year.”
Seven will pay 13 per cent less – about $65 million per year - for its portion of the deal and will increase that figure if CA meets a certain set of benchmarks with the BBL. Foxtel will increase the amount it pays the body,due to the reduction from Seven. Foxtel boss Patrick Delany said he wouldn’t comment on the amount paid,but sources close to the deal believe it is an increase of about $30 million per year.