Media rights for Australian cricket internationals and the Big Bash League are set to change hands in a $1 billion, six-year deal with Foxtel in partnership with the Seven Network.

Cricket Australia (CA) will likely announce the deal in Sydney on Friday afternoon after Nine and the Ten Networks also confirmed they’d lost the rights.

“Seven West Media Limited (ASX:SWM) advises that it has been informed by Cricket Australia that it is the successful bidder with Foxtel,” the company said in a brief statement.

It means the Nine Network has lost the rights to cricket for the first time in four decades, after their recent landmark deal to grab the rights for the Australian summer of tennis from Seven Network.

“Nine is immensely proud of our decades long association between Wide World of Sports and the game of cricket in this country,” a Nine spokesperson said.



“We wish Cricket Australia and its new broadcast partners well for the future success of the game.



“Cricket will continue to be a part of Nine’s schedule into the future with current deals in place covering the next Ashes series from England in 2019, the ODI World Cup in the UK in the same year and in 2020 the T20 World Cups to be held in Australia.”

Under the deal with Cricket Australia, Pay TV provider Foxtel will have exclusive rights to some BBL matches as well as simulcast rights for live Tests and international limited-overs matches, The Australian reports.

A disappointed Network Ten chief executive Paul Anderson confirmed their offer had been rejected on Friday morning, after having televised the emergent Big Bash League for the past four summers.



“We are disappointed that our bid for the cricket television rights was rejected,” Mr Anderson said in a statement.



Cricket Australia had been in talks with executives of both Channel Seven owner Seven West Media and Network Ten on Thursday night to become Foxtel’s free-to-air cricket partner, The Australian Financial Review reported.

Under terms of the deal before the Seven announcement, either Seven or Ten would gain the rights to air all Test matches and some of the domestic Big Bash League games, the report said.

Under Australia’s anti-siphoning laws, Foxtel cannot hold sole rights to cricket and must have a free-to-air partner.

Nine recently won the rights to broadcast tennis in Australia for $60 million a year.

The five-year deal from 2020 to 2024 covers television, streaming, mobile and digital rights and is estimated to be about $100 million more than Seven paid for its current five-year deal.

Nine paid Cricket Australia $500 million in the last rights deal but was caught napping when Channel Ten’s secured the BBL rights in 2013 when it agreed to pay $20 million per year.

Nine already pays around $625 million to broadcast the NRL and was reportedly losing $30-40 million a year from televising Australia’s summer of cricket, according to financial analysts UBS.

UBS last year urged Nine to either acquire “more cricket at no additional cost” or “to step away from the cricket contract”.

-with AAP