Ashes TV rights unlikely to change
June 24, 2010 · 0 Comments
Sports minister Hugh Robertson has warned that funding cuts to sport make it unlikely that the Ashes will be returned to free-to-view TV.
Robertson indicated the current economic picture made it even more important that sports had the freedom to sell their broadcast rights to whoever would pay them the most. The previous Government commissioned a review of broadcast sports rights and had broadly backed plans to make the Ashes a listed event, available for free-to-air television, although a final decision had not been reached prior to the general election.
Robertson told www.thewisdencricketer.com: “The previous Government did this for political purposes but then didn’t include it in their manifesto which is interesting.
“Since then the economic situation has deteriorated quite sharply. Big public expenditure cuts will impact in sport, so the way to equalise that is to give them [governing bodies] the freedom to market their own rights.”
Back in February, Robertson said it would be “foolish” to deprive the ECB of their broadcast money from BSkyB.
He said : “People are just waking up to the fact that 80% of the ECB’s income comes from broadcast income and if you take that away you are going to decimate quite a lot of investment that’s gone in to women’s cricket and the grassroots. That’s a brave if not a very foolish call to make.”
Tags: Ashes, BSkyB, cricket, ECB, Sky Sports
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