After a pretty rocky relationship, Seven West Media is finally taking Cricket Australia to court.
👉 Background: Seven West Media signed a rights deal to broadcast the cricket with Cricket Australia back in 2018, after snatching the rights off of Channel 9.
👉 What happened: The part-cash part-ads deal was set to last until 2024, but the pair haven't seen eye to eye for a while now. Back in 2020, Seven threatened to sue Cricket Australia, but ended up sorting things out outside of court.
👉 What else: Turns out the two have hit rough waters again, with Channel 7 now filing court proceedings against Cricket Australia, alleging it repeatedly breached quality standards and contract provisions.
💡Over the last two decades, there's been a boom in the cost (and value) of sports rights in Australia. Get this: the average value of yearly rights deals for cricket and NRL have grown more than 10% per annum since 2007.
💡 Sporting bodies have become more sophisticated and now understand the commercial value of the 'product' they provide. But when millions (or even billions) of dollars are piled in by broadcasters, the expectations become higher and higher ↗️.
💡So when Cricket Australia allegedly doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain, Channel 7 might be thinking that this $450 million could be better spent elsewhere... My Restaurant Rules On Ice, anyone? ⛸
Sign up for Flux and join 100,000 members of the Flux family
