Channel Nine has renewed its rights with Cricket Australia in a record deal.
In the richest television agreement in the game’s history, Nine will pay in the region of $450 million in cash and contra advertising to televise home international matches between November and February. Nine trumped Network Ten by exercising its last-rights privilege from its previous contract with Cricket Australia.
Nine management signed the documentation for the deal in Sydney at 4.10pm on Monday afternoon, 50 minutes before the deadline, formally clinching the sought-after broadcast rights.
“Nine Entertainment is today a larger, stronger and more profitable company than it was yesterday,” Nine chief executive David Gyngell said
Ten, who had lodged a huge $550m bid to cover international games and the Twenty20 Big Bash League, have snatched the short-format competition for $20m a year over five years, taking it to free-to-air television from its previous rights holder, Fox Sports.
