The New Media Rights Playbook
Pt 2
Issue No 22
If Part 1 was about the signal, Part 2 is about the response.
The next generation of cricket media deals will not look like the last one. Not because cricket suddenly became less valuable, but because buyers now want flexibility more than bravado.
The days of one cheque solving everything are fading.
Long rights cycles were built on confidence. Confidence in growth. Confidence in subscriber numbers. Confidence that advertising would keep up.
That confidence no longer exists at the same level.
Broadcasters want optionality. They want review points. They want the ability to reset pricing if consumer behaviour changes or platforms evolve.
For cricket, that likely means:
Three to four year cycles instead of five to eight.
Built-in renegotiation clauses.
Performance-based upsides rather than fixed escalators.
This reduces short-term certainty for boards, but it lowers existential risk.
Cricket has already split rights by territory. The next split is by use case.
Expect clearer separation between:
Live matches.
Digital clips and short-form content.
Archive and shoulder programming.
Emerging markets versus mature ones.
This allows buyers to pay for what they actually monetise, not what looks good on a bid document.
It also allows the ICC and boards to hedge. If one segment underperforms, it doesn’t sink the entire deal.
Historically, cricket chased the biggest name. The biggest network. The biggest cheque.
That logic is changing.
The question is no longer “who pays the most?” but “who grows the product?”
Platforms now want:
Always-on content, not just match days.
Storytelling layers around the game.
Data and direct audience insight.
Cricket’s value increases when it fits into a platform’s ecosystem, not when it simply occupies a slot.
This is why future deals may look smaller on paper but smarter in structure.
Boards that rely entirely on central distributions will feel nervous. And rightly so.
But boards that understand their audience, control their archives, and produce consistent digital content will have leverage.
Not leverage to demand more money immediately, but leverage to negotiate relevance.
The gap between proactive boards and passive ones will widen.
Cricket has sold scarcity well. It has not sold continuity well.
Broadcasters paid premiums for events, not ecosystems. That model struggles in a world where platforms want daily engagement, not periodic spikes.
The new playbook rewards properties that behave like media businesses, not just rights holders.
What comes next
Part 3 will tackle the tension at the heart of this shift.
When does owning your audience beat selling your rights?
Which boards can realistically go direct-to-consumer?
And who should absolutely not try?
This is where theory meets reality.
Community Question
Do you think cricket is better off with fewer long-term media rights deals or shorter, more flexible packages, even if that means less certainty for boards in the short term?
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