Now we all know that the Rugby World Cup is going on right now but Today, Nine has announced their 2023 Cricket World Cup content ahead of the tournament’s start on Thursday October 5 between England v New Zealand next month.
Unlike the Ashes a few months ago in England, they will be sharing the rights with Fox Cricket as the free-to-air partner that will see them broadcast air all Australian matches & Finals. Plus, they will also air a handful of key International matches since Nine lost the home International domestic rights to Seven & Fox back in 2018. Although there won’t be full match replays, but there will be mini matches to look back on-demand in addition to live coverage on the main channel (Channel 9) & 9Now.
It’s the same rights-sharing arrangement that has been going on for such a long time including last year’s T20 World Cup on home soil, as this could be the last time Nine would be airing one of the ICC events in the Cricket World Cup ahead of the next rights cycle going into 2024. As per usual, we will be getting the world feed commentary team since cricket is a different sport that includes several people rotating every half-hour rather than soccer/rugby where you’re allowed to aseemble your own commentary team.
Meanwhile, Nine will always have pre-game, post-game & mid-break studio coverage back in Sydney on top of the world feed commentary with just Roz Kelly (Host) & Mark Taylor (Analyst). They may have a bit less analysts than usual but these two know their stuff every well where Mark was a great opening batsman back in his day for Australia including his long-running association providing cricket commentary with the network for over two decades now, while Roz is more than just a decent sportscaster via her husband Morne Morkel whom they have two young boys as a family together.
The scheduling is great even though all of the matches are going to be held over in India from 7pm at night apart from the final Australian group stage game v Bangladesh where it will be begin at 3.30pm on Saturday, November 11. It’s gonna be a great one to watch on what has been a big World Cup year of sport, then once the CWC is done we’ll have to wait and see whether or not if Nine would stay on airing ICC events for the next four or eight years contract cycle with Fox since Nine now has their own paid streaming arm of Stan Sport.
