Rupert Murdoch and Frank Lowy "saw the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse charging towards their empires and reacted wisely with clever sales of assets," but the major spectator sports have "opened the stable door to welcome these rampaging riders," according to Roy Masters of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. Some observers "use the Four Horsemen to refer to Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, the online streamers causing devastation to traditional media and retail shopping." Cricket Australia's broadcasting rights expire next month but, to date, "only one of the online behemoths has taken a charge at the sport worldwide," and it was not for test matches but the "increasingly popular shorter form of the game," Twenty20. Furthermore, it was "a bid in a market much bigger than Australia." The Indian Premier League recently secured global rights (across all media platforms) in a A$3.2B ($2.5B) deal with Star, now owned by 21st Century Fox. There were 14 bidders for the rights and Facebook was among the losing bidders for digital OTT rights in the Indian subcontinent. Globally, this was the "first material bid by the Four Horseman for sports media rights" and represented a 700%-plus increase, across all platforms and markets, on previous rights. Murdoch's decision to sell the "bulk" of his main entity, 21st Century Fox, to Disney for A$66.84B ($52.6B) was "another game changer for sports media rights." The decision has been attributed to "massive cord-cutting," otherwise known as loss of subscribers, as people cancel their pay-TV connections in the U.S. CBS may decide to partner with Fox Sports and acquire all of CA's content, including tests, one-day internationals and int'l T20s, held by Channel 9 for A$80M ($62.9M) a year. These rights also expire next month, along with CA's digital rights that are held and distributed by CA with sub-distribution by Optus (SMH, 1/4).
