Cricket’s Media Rights Reset
Issue No 20
Cricket’s media rights market is wobbling. Not collapsing. Wobbling.
JioStar signalling discomfort with seeing out a US$3bn ICC deal is not just a broadcaster issue. It’s a structural moment for the sport. One that forces uncomfortable but necessary questions about how cricket sells itself, to whom, and for how long.
For years, cricket has relied on one assumption. That India-centric broadcast money will always grow, always be renewed, and always paper over inefficiencies elsewhere. This moment suggests that assumption is no longer bulletproof.
What this means for the current ICC deal?
If JioStar cannot or will not see out the full cycle, the ICC has a problem, but also an opportunity.
Short term, the ICC likely leans on contingency partners. State broadcasters like Prasar Bharati stepping forward is not random. It is a stabiliser. Free-to-air reach matters ahead of a T20 World Cup, especially in India. Expect political, public-interest, and access arguments to come back into play.
But free-to-air is not a like-for-like replacement for premium rights money. That gap has to be filled somewhere.
The era of one mega buyer writing a single massive cheque is under pressure.
Future ICC deals may shorten cycles, split packages by region, platform, or format or trade some top-line value for flexibility and risk management.
This is less about losing money and more about reducing dependency.
This opens the door for streaming giants but not in the way cricket administrators often imagine.
Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and YouTube are not chasing prestige sports rights for tradition’s sake. They want global stories, consistent inventory, control over distribution and data.
This is where cricket struggles. Too many boards. Too many calendars. Too much fragmentation.
The likely outcome is not one streamer owning “all of cricket”, but selective plays for :
ICC global tournaments,
Documentary-plus-rights hybrids
Shorter windows tied to specific markets.
Owning your audience is smart, which begs the question, should every board own its own channel. Running a full broadcast operation is expensive and operationally brutal.
The smarter play for most boards is:
A direct-to-consumer channel for archive, shoulder content, and community.
Strategic licensing of live rights in smaller, modular deals.
Long-term partnerships that grow audiences before maximising fees.
Think ecosystem, not empire.
Will that mean subscription overload for fans?
Football is already there.
The Premier League split rights to maximise revenue. Fans now pay multiple subscriptions to follow one team. It works financially. It hurts fandom.
Cricket risks copying the model without the volume of games or weekly habit football enjoys.
If cricket goes this route, expect:
One platform for ICC events.
Another for domestic leagues.
Board-owned platforms for archive and behind-the-scenes.
Regional free-to-air windows for growth markets.
More choice. More confusion. More cost for fans.
Is the goal to extract maximum value per cycle, or to build a resilient media ecosystem?
Those are not the same thing.
This moment with JioStar is not a crisis. It’s a stress test. And stress tests reveal where systems are too concentrated, too slow, or too reliant on old assumptions.
Cricket has time. But not much of it.
This isn’t just about one broadcaster or one deal. It’s about how cricket funds itself, who controls its audience, and whether the sport is building long-term resilience or short-term security.
Over the next five editions of Bat Ball Business, we’ll dig deeper into what this moment really means. We’ll break down the JioStar situation beyond the headlines, examine how future ICC rights may be structured, and explore whether owning audiences will matter more than selling rights. We’ll look at lessons from football’s fragmented broadcast model, the risk of fan fatigue, and what a smarter, more sustainable media ecosystem for cricket could actually look like.
This series is about decisions, not drama. And the choices made now will shape how the game is watched, funded, and valued for the next decade.
Community Question
If you were running a cricket board today, would you prioritise a single big media rights cheque or smaller, flexible deals that help you own your audience long term? Where do you think cricket gets this balance wrong right now?
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