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England’s Test series against India may not be shown on TV..
Rights to broadcast the series remain unsold three weeks before the first Test...
Stokes will lead his England side for the five-Test series. England lost 3-1 on their previous tour to India, a series shown on Channel 4
Stokes will lead his England side for the five-Test series. England lost 3-1 on their previous tour to India, a series shown on Channel 4
PA
England’s Test series in India may not be broadcast on UK television as the rights remain unsold less than three weeks before the first match.
For all the glamour of Bazball and last summer’s Ashes being hailed an all-time classic, it is understood that the leading players in the market — Sky Sports and TNT Sports, formerly BT Sport — have not actively engaged in the rights sales for the India series, which begins on January 25. Channel 4 covered England’s previous Test series in India, in 2021, but is unlikely to bid again.
Indian rights are often sold late as the initially high prices demanded by the Board of Control for Cricket in India drop as the start date approaches. However, insiders suggest that the leading broadcasters remain indifferent. Sky and TNT both secured Premier League football rights for 2025-29 last month and Channel 4 is focusing on the Paralympics this year.
Ben Stokes, the England Test captain, is driven by an ambition to popularise Test cricket and it would be a serious blow if the matches, between two global powerhouses of the game, were not available to an English audience.
Three years ago Channel 4 paid £7 million for the rights to England’s four Tests in India, about one third of the figure that the rights holder, Star, was originally seeking, in a deal struck only three days before the first Test. With no time to set up on-the-ground commentators they took the world feed, backed up by a studio team consisting of the presenter Rishi Persad and the former England captains Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss.
The value of media rights for bilateral cricket has been falling in the face of competition from T20 leagues, which has further incentivised national boards to prioritise short-format tournaments for fear of running out of money altogether. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) created the Hundred precisely for this reason, as insurance against shrinking revenues from England matches.
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Sky Sports covered every England overseas Test between 1990 and 2017 but has since skipped a number of high-profile winter series in favour of covering T20 tournaments.
It is broadcasting the Big Bash League (BBL) in Australia, which ends on January 24, and last year shared coverage of the Indian Premier League (IPL) with the streaming platform DAZN. This year’s IPL begins in late March, shortly after the India Tests finish.
The hours of play for Test series in India are not particularly attractive to UK audiences, with the action starting at 4.30am and ending at about 11.30am, but are more accessible than an England tour to Australia, when daytime Tests begin at about midnight and end at about 7.30am. BBL and IPL games start at more convenient times.
When England made a white-ball tour to Bangladesh in March, the ECB injected a six-figure sum to ensure a deal was struck between the Bangladesh board and Sky for the games to be broadcast, and the board would be loath to see the India games not shown at all at a time when it is under pressure to promote the game to wider audiences.
The most recent England Tests not to be shown on UK television date from the late 1980s, before Sky’s entry into the sports rights market. The UK radio rights for the India series have been secured by TalkSport.
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