The news that cricket is returning to Channel 4 for the forthcoming series between India and England has been greeted with relief by cricket fans and absolute mystification by everyone else. In 2005, after the greatest Ashes series any of us will ever see, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) signed a long-term deal with Sky Sports, which made the ECB a fortune and blew a huge hole in cricket’s potential television audience. To this day I have cricket-mad friends who refuse to sign up to Sky Sports, either because it is owned by Rupert Murdoch or because it’s so bloody expensive, or possibly both.
It costs me about £1000 a year to watch cricket on Sky, and it’s no consolation to know that the money has gone from me to Virgin Media to Rupert to the ECB to line the pockets of England players, who are now much better remunerated thanks to the Sky deal.
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