Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Wonder if subscriptions will go up after the football deal. They are already remarkable.

How much are they if you take the full sports package?? The answer to your question is, of course though. It did make me laugh that Scudamore was reported in the press here as saying something along the lines of "saturation point hasn't been reached, and people will be saying where's the saturation point in 5 years time still".... basically, its not an issue......

Last time I had Sky sports it was about £60 a month, which was the most expensive "utility" in my household, and I had to justify it to my other half, and this was in the days where I had no mortgage or two kids.

I don't understand how people can afford it on even wages above the minimum, and no doubt the cost has gone up since

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Wonder if subscriptions will go up after the football deal. They are already remarkable.

Like death and taxes, a Sky Subscription increase is also one of the only certain things in life.

After that list was released everything has become a bit less effervescent.

There's a documentary about the state of cricket coming out in a couple of weeks by Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber, called Death of a Gentleman. It's on at my local cinema, and I expect I'll go and see it.

It was a nice change to go back to radio commentary in the last Test. The picture lag is now greater than ever though. It can't be long though before Blofeld and Boycott annoy me as much as Warne, Holding, Knight, Lloyd, Hussain and Botham. But the other commentators were all fine.

Huge hikes in subscription costs this year on Virgin. Sky Sports is going next time I wake up with a bit of motivation.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:There's a documentary about the state of cricket coming out in a couple of weeks by Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber, called Death of a Gentleman. It's on at my local cinema, and I expect I'll go and see it.

There's a Q&A every night (four). I hate getting stuck in those.

So Sky Academy comes across a bit like the Umbrella Corporation.

Featuring a CGI Nick Knight.

I don't know what it is but I don't like it when people say such things as 'it is made for young people like me'.

TMS lost rights to radio coverage of the forthcoming Sri Lanka and West Indies tours. Talksport out bid them.

TBH they didn't really outbid them it was just that Sri lanka and west indies home rights were grouped together and Talksport got the rights last year.
Talksports had the rights to the india vs Sri lanka tour last year in sri lanka.
quite possible Talksports got all the rights to cricket in Sri lanka, west indies and the Sony Ten group home games which actually include vast majority of the cricketing world the only ones out of it are South africa, India, England and Australia plus NZ.

Talksport basically brought the rights before TMS even tried to buy it.

massive coup for them though considering they mostly just been doing IPL, ICC events recently.
in the past 12 month they did buy loads of cricket rights and sports rights in general, look like the Sky money is helping them.

wouldn't surprise me if TMS starts declining now, suspect they might stop doing away stuff now and just concentrate on the home and domestic stuff.
the new ECB rights would be their priority now and they don't really need all the cricket rights now.
suspect it wouldn't take much to outbid them now.

looks like I might be right.
Times saying Talksport might have the South africa rights the winter afterwards.
suspect Talksports are getting the packages in bulk.

generally South africa home rights are distributed by TenSport/Sony overseas and their are the same company giving the rights to talksport for next winter rights.

Bit interesting that their are bundling the radio rights together.
ECB/ CA and the other boards wanted the tv rights to be bundled together so india broadcasters are forced to show Ashes alongside Sri lanka vs West indies etc.
not sure that is in the books anymore, should be considering Away rights value is dropping in india at the moment with the value of home and ipl games rising.

The last time Talksport had the cricket their coverage was abysmal, and the advertising an intrusive part of the commentary.