A "radical shake-up" to the existing ecosystem of selling TV rights is under discussion by full members and will be examined further at the Int'l Cricket Council's annual conference in Edinburgh later this month, according to ESPN. The change, "one part of a broader reworking of cricket's international calendar, is aimed at giving member boards better value for their television rights in overseas markets." If implemented, a new model could see boards "take greater control than broadcasters of monetising the value of bilateral cricket as well as its promotion and visibility in untapped markets." The "crux of the proposal" is this: once the current cycle of TV rights ends for respective full members, "each board will continue to sell rights for its home territory and avail of those profits entirely as is already the case." But each board "will place the rights to telecast its home series in overseas markets in a common pool into which other boards will also put those rights." The rights in the common pool "will then be sold collectively as bundles by a committee of Full Members and the profits will be divided and distributed in certain percentages to the contributing boards." This "will be a change from the current system where the home board sells rights -- either home and away or both -- to a particular broadcaster and then leaves it to that broadcaster to on-sell the rights for overseas markets to other broadcasters." Part of the "driving force behind the proposal arises from the fear some boards have of a gradual dip in the value of their broadcast deals for bilateral series." There is "also a feeling among some that broadcasters have not reaped the full monetary benefits" of overseas rights in markets such as the U.S. (ESPN, 6/19).
