Last Updated on 4 months by Charbel Coorey
Australia are the current 50-over World Cup champions. They are also the reigning World Test champions. Three years ago, the men’s team lifted the T20 World Cup for the first time.
Such a period of success should, in theory, generate greater awareness of another trophy that Australia could add to its impressive cabinet. However, the 2024 edition of the T20 World Cup runs the risk of going over the heads of many in Australia, with no matches available on either free-to-air (FTA) television or Foxtel/Kayo – two channels which fans have become very accustomed to in this country.
T20 World Cup fully behind paywall runs risk of abandonment
Prime Video, owned by Amazon, won the rights to broadcast all ICC events until 2027. As announced in its news release, this includes men’s and women’s T20 World Cups, ODI World Cups, World Test Championship final, Champions Trophy, and U19 World Cups.
“Prime Video has worked to create a single destination for audiences to find new movies, live sports, and their favourite TV shows. We are always looking for ways to deliver more value to our customers and live sports is consistently one of their top requests,” said Hushidar Kharas, head of Prime Video Australia and New Zealand.
“We are thrilled to be able to offer our customers the live broadcast of the Cricket World Cup included in their Prime membership.”
Another streaming service can catch fans off-guard. To watch the Australian team, supporters will have to pay for Foxtel/Kayo as well as Amazon Prime (if they are not eligible for the 30-day free trial). This is in addition to the fact that home ODIs and T20Is are not on FTA television in the summer.
Channel 7 CEO James Warburton was one of the FTA television bosses to demand stronger anti-siphoning laws. Speaking in a Senate inquiry in Canberra, Warburton said, “Live sporting moments bring our nation together and must remain free and accessible to everyone regardless of their income.”
T20 World Cup up against a lot of sporting competitors in the Australia winter
While fans can take advantage of a free Amazon Prime trial, such a broadcasting landscape makes it more difficult for the casual fan to know which sport is on which platform. It can make for a ratings disaster given how Australians typically consume sports. Fans down-under are very seasonal, with winter associated with footy while December-February is cricket time.
To encourage fans to watch cricket in the winter months requires much better than another paywall on another streaming platform.
The tournament is taking place smack-bang in the middle of the NRL and AFL football seasons. State of Origin is set to kick off, which dominates the sporting news in New South Wales and Queensland.
If the World Cup was on Fox Cricket, fans could switch from Fox League and Fox Footy to catch at least the highlights if live action is too challenging given the timezone differences. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Also, the Euros and Copa America football tournaments will garner a lot of the attention. As a result, the International Cricket Council (ICC), who accepted Amazon’s offer, runs the risk of reducing a World Cup to a mere periphery in one of its major nations.
Too many World Cups?
The 2024 T20 World Cup is the fourth “World Cup” since the start of 2021. There was a T20 edition in both 2021 (UAE) and 2022 (Australia), followed by the 2023 50-over World Cup in India.
It begs the question of whether the frequency of such tournaments reduces its novelty. So, during last year’s ODI tournament, we asked fans what their thoughts were on this matter.
Nearly 5,000 fans worldwide took part in the future of cricket survey. 52% of respondents believe that white-ball ICC events are too often an occurrence, compared to 41.9% who believe it’s right the way it is. Just 6.1% responded that there should be more. Read about the results here.
Of course, there is the argument that Associate nations get more exposure in such events. However, is that true? This hasn’t really been the case until this year. Before this T20 World Cup, Associate nations had to play an additional qualifying round to make the Super 12s stage. And, we all know about the ten-team ODI World Cups.
I only hope that Australia’s push for another ICC trophy is one that fans are aware of. Perhaps attention will be greater once the Super 8 stage begins, but the fact is many fans will be getting their updates from social media feeds rather than more easily accessible broadcasts.
Those broadcasts should always be a given when Australia competes in a world event.
