Today channels Nine and Ten are still caught in a bidding war for Australia cricket broadcasting rights. As I suggested a few weeks ago when CBA and Investec went head to head for an Ashes sponsorship, some sport analysis might useful in assessing the potential gain of these contracts.
Australian cricket is in terminal decline and the next few years are going to deliver nothing but pain to what will be dwindling numbers of viewers.
One element of the forthcoming pain I neglected to mention in my recent analysis of an approaching Australian cricket apocalypse was that we were touring India before England:
…my guess is we lose the Ashes tour 5-nil. Or four-nil if the weather beats England once.
And this is where it starts to get interesting for CBA and Investec. After we’ve been destroyed in England, it’s the return series in Australia that they will sponsor just a few short months later.
What are the national selectors going to do after a 5-nil drubbing of their now mentally-ill minors? Play the same eleven in straight-jackets?
My forecast is looking stronger by the match and is boosted too also by today’s news that four players have been stood down and the vice-captain has spat the dummy even before we get to England. From News:
In one of the most dramatic days in Australian cricket history, coach Mickey Arthur dropped a bombshell on the team yesterday by dumping Watson, Mitchell Johnson, James Pattinson and Usman Khawaja for breaching team discipline.
The quartet were stood down from selection for one match for failing to respond to a peer review of the side’s dismal performance in the second Test.
But the team was rocked by a second ruction late last night, with vice-captain Watson deciding to leave India to be with wife Lee, who is heavily pregnant and due to give birth.
Watson has been left gutted by the circumstances surrounding his axing – to the point where he is now contemplating walking away from the game.
“I am going to spend the next few weeks with my family and weigh up my options as to exactly which direction I want to go,” he said.
“There are a lot more important things in life. I do love playing cricket and that passion is still there and I feel I am in the prime years of my cricket career.
The rats are abandoning a sinking ship. We are going to lose the next match in India then go to England in complete disarray. I wonder what odds Ladbrokes will give me for a 10-nil drubbing. Evens?
