Cricket Australia's bold ambition for the game to expand into the North American market will take another step when it soon begins negotiations for a new US broadcast deal. CA will no doubt be armed with the extraordinary footage of more than 80,000 spectators at the MCG on Saturday night.

CA's alignment with American cable sports channel Willow is the third most lucrative of the organisation's overseas broadcast rights deals behind their rich contracts with Star Sports in India and Britain's BT Sport, which it signed a five-year deal with last August.

However, with the Willow contract soon to expire, CA is keen to explore how much more exposure it can secure for its products in a region it believes has untold potential for the game to grow in.

It is believed an ideal scenario would be for CA's content - which includes all home internationals and the Big Bash League - to be screened on a more widely available satellite provider such as global sports giant ESPN. That would make its matches more accessible for viewers across the United States and Canada who do not subscribe to Willow, which is not in cable sports packages but instead is offered in south Asian packages.