The new world of selling content - cricket as a case study

Cricket Australia has three main forms of cricket to manage - Test and first-class matches, Limited Overs cricket and Twenty20 cricket-and the sale of media rights is Cricket Australia's single biggest revenue stream. Traditionally the basic business model has been based on a mixed blessing of the sale of generally secure broadcast rights, which usually account for 60-70% of income, though this has largely been earned each year over only one Australian season: summer. However the world of sporting rights is rapidly changing and new considerations involve judgements about appropriate content platforms, payment options (such as free, pay, pay per view), transmission windows (live, delayed, highlights, ondemand/catch up, archive) and technology options (satellite, cable, IPTV, digital or analogue). Though major benefits continue for international cricket to remain with the mass coverage of free-to-air television, all sporting organisations face a highly complex decision making puzzle in the emerging world of diverse platform choice offering people so many different attractive products. The NBN is another wild card in the mix, which may eventually reshape how people access their chosen content on which platform, but which in the long run may possibly consolidate the number of devices people use in their media lives. Cricket Australia needs to ensure that it has a strong commercial overlay to create sustainable revenue and to protect its valuable assets, whilst ensuring that the best interests of the cricket fans remain at the heart of its decisions about content access, distribution and consumption in the future.