The 2024 T20 World Cup might be coming to an end this weekend over in the West Indies, but there’s a bit of surprise earlier today that Amazon Prime in Australia has just picked up the rights to show the Major League Cricket T20 competition on top of the ICC events they’ve picked up that is set to begin on Saturday July 6 (Friday over in America) next weekend to Monday July 29 (Sunday US time). As said, they will have every game live & on-demand replays with mini-match highlights too.
Fox Cricket via Foxtel and Kayo Sports aired the inaugural competition last year but it looks like retaining just the Australian home rights to all cricket here and not everything cricket is all that matters after they lost the ICC rights late last year – not long after Australia won their 6th title in the 50-Over World Cup Final v India. It costs so much $$$ to produce such a top-notch broadcast every match of the Aussie summer, even though the International interest here isn’t the same as it was once before. Hence, you can see why Nine is broadcasting the Tennis nowadays when they had enough of the game all those years ago while they’ve had poor commentary feedback during their final few years – especially after Tony and Richie passed away.
But they’re still sticking around for another couple of years until at least 2030/31 with the next tv rights contract set to begin later this year along with Seven who will now be able to stream matches online for free on 7Plus, having originally been restricted to TV-only coverage likewise with the AFL until next year when they took over long-time holders Nine back in 2018.
Going back to the Amazon Prime-MLC deal, good for them to add another league on their subscription streaming service where things began to feel like home outside of Fox Cricket when Australia isn’t playing at home. Yes, getting the rights to air the Australian away matches would have to be dealt with individual cricket boards like the Indian BCCI & New Zealand Cricket for example. But Fox Cricket still sees value within at least the other Top 3-5 nations, so don’t see them losing that easily any time soon. However, it’s possible for Amazon Prime to try and be the home of other Australian away cricket when the Aussies play against Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Ireland & Afghanistan. Fox doesn’t have a great history in recent times with these cricketing boards including other T20 tournaments, so can see Amazon coming in if Fox doesn’t want them and once the next IPL rights is up for grabs come 2027 there’s no doubt Amazon would want to make this happen as well.
So far, so good from Amazon Prime on wanting to be the home of World Cup and overseas cricket in Australia. They still have until 2027 to run through the current ICC deal and if Amazon Prime stay, it would be interesting to see which free-to-air partner they choose when a future Men’s T20 World Cup comes here again & New Zealand in October-November 2028.
Looking beyond Amazon Prime, Fox Cricket and Seven – you wonder why Nine isn’t doing much to add Cricket to their Stan Sport line up when they’ve been a Pay TV station (not like Foxtel on cable but subscription streaming-only service) of their own for the last few years. I see they have the annual Black Clash T20 charity match every January because it involves a mix of Rugby and Cricket legends because they’re the home of Rugby Union (Super Rugby, Wallabies and Club Rugby) here.
But when it comes to trying to get the other Australian away cricket content like the ICC events, individual tours against a specific lower ranked Test nation and even the full England Cricket stuff other than retaining the Ashes Tests in England on Nine (2027 and 2031) that is specifically covered by the government, don’t think they would do it when the interest levels isn’t that good as said before compared to the 90s-early 00s & plus they also got the whole grand slam tennis on offer.
Tennis matches can last the whole time nearly 100% uninterrupted except on the outside show courts with no roof than the usual cricket game being halted depending how long it takes before coming back once the rain stops & then the game can also finish off early than expected. Again, not worth the risk at this stage for Nine to try out cricket for its Stan Sport subscribers as retaining just the away Ashes only in England makes sense for the main channel for now. It has both the historical and competitive value in order to translate the investment they want to put out for their viewers and advertisers whereas the away and ICC events doesn’t do much even if it means putting most content behind a paywall with Australian games live and free on Nine when they take place on the other side of the world mostly between early evening to midnight and early-late morning except on rare occasions like the 2028 ICC T20 Men’s World Cup here and New Zealand for example.
And finally, well done to USA Cricket on a amazing tournament where they’ve got off to a great start v arch rivals Canada while shocking Pakistan along the way before Mother Nature v Ireland following a rained out draw gave them an extended run in the Super 8 and an automatic qualification for the next Men’s T20 World Cup in 2026 – even though things weren’t easy against the top sides like India from their Group A game including England, West Indies and South Africa (Proteas) throughout the 2nd round. I’m sure they will keep on growing with more cricketers from the top nations will want to come here to play their cricket in the US in the years to come alongside a core focus at homegrown talent at the same time ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which is going to the sport’s comeback to the program since 1900 but via the T20 format.