Australian Cricket Broadcast Rights and the Anti-Siphoning List

Cricket TV rights in Australia currently sit with two parties. The Seven Network and the Foxtel Group hold the domestic rights to everything Cricket Australia stages — men's and women's internationals at home, the Big Bash League and the Women's Big Bash League — under a seven-year agreement worth about $1.512 billion that began with the 2024-25 summer and runs to the end of the 2030-31 season. Seven is the free-to-air half, broadcasting on its main channel and streaming on 7plus. Foxtel is the subscription half, through Fox Cricket and Kayo.

That covers the Australian summer. It does not cover global tournaments. ICC events — the men's and women's World Cups, the Champions Trophy, World Test Championship finals — are sold separately by the ICC, and in Australia those rights are held by Prime Video through to the end of 2027. That is why an Australian who can watch every ball of a home Test summer on free-to-air television may need a separate subscription to watch Australia play a World Cup final.

Sitting over all of it is the anti-siphoning scheme: a list of events made under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 that pay-television and, since 2024, streaming services cannot acquire until free-to-air broadcasters have had the chance to. It is a first-right-to-negotiate rule and nothing more. It does not require a free-to-air network to buy an event, and it does not require one that has bought an event to show it. Understanding that distinction explains almost every complaint Australians have about where cricket has ended up.

The current deal in detail

Announced in January 2023 and beginning in 2024, the agreement runs seven years to the close of the 2030-31 Australian summer. The headline figure is about $1.512 billion, an increase of roughly 10.5 per cent per year on the agreement it replaced.

The split is broadly the pattern established in 2018. Seven carries a free-to-air package built around Test cricket and a portion of the Big Bash. Foxtel carries everything, with Fox Cricket producing full coverage and Kayo distributing it. Both parties stream: 7plus on the free side, Kayo on the paid side, which means that for the first time the entire Australian cricket summer is available to a viewer with no aerial and no set-top box.

The deal also settled a fight. Seven had brought legal proceedings against Cricket Australia over the effect of the pandemic on the value of the seasons it had paid for, and withdrew them as part of the new agreement.

Total announced value of successive domestic broadcast agreements in billions of Australian dollars, plotted at the year each deal commenced. Deals cover different numbers of years so the totals are not directly comparable per season.

Show the numbers

Cricket Australia domestic rights deals by value

Item	Value
2018	1.18
2024	1.51

What the deal did to the Big Bash

The most visible on-field consequence of the current agreement is that the men's Big Bash League was cut from 61 matches to 43.

Cricket Australia's stated reasoning was that a shorter season would increase player availability, put a greater proportion of matches in prime time and align the tournament more closely with the school holidays. The unstated reasoning is that a 61-match season had stretched the competition past the point where every game felt like it mattered, and a broadcaster paying more per season wanted a denser product rather than a longer one.

The change is a good illustration of how much broadcast money shapes the sport it pays for. A tournament format was redesigned as part of a media negotiation. The current shape of the competition is set out in the Big Bash League format guide, and the clubs themselves in the Big Bash League hub.

How Australia got here: Nine's forty years

From the settlement that ended the World Series Cricket split at the end of the 1970s until 2018, the Nine Network broadcast Australian cricket. Forty years is an extraordinary run in sports rights, and it produced a coverage style — the commentary box, the summer-long rhythm, the visual grammar of an Australian Test day — that a couple of generations took to be simply what cricket on television was.

Nine lost the rights in 2018 to a joint bid from Seven and Foxtel worth about $1.182 billion over six years, roughly double the value of the previous long-term arrangement. Ten, which had held the Big Bash, lost that too. The change was abrupt and, for many viewers, disorienting in a way that a rights change in another sport would not have been, because summer cricket on Nine had been a fixed point in the Australian calendar for so long.

Where each format is shown now

Content	Free-to-air	Subscription and streaming
Men's Tests in Australia	Seven and 7plus	Fox Cricket and Kayo
Women's internationals in Australia	Seven and 7plus, selected matches	Fox Cricket and Kayo
Men's ODIs and T20Is in Australia	Varies by season and series	Fox Cricket and Kayo
Big Bash League	Seven and 7plus, selected matches	Fox Cricket and Kayo, full schedule
Women's Big Bash League	Seven and 7plus, selected matches	Fox Cricket and Kayo, full schedule
ICC World Cups and Champions Trophy	Not held by a free-to-air broadcaster	Prime Video, to the end of 2027
Australia's away tours	Not covered by the domestic deal	Depends on the host board's arrangements

The last row is the one that catches people out. Cricket Australia sells the rights to cricket it stages. When Australia tour England, India or South Africa, the rights belong to the host board and are sold into Australia separately, which is why the broadcaster for an away series can change from tour to tour. The practical question of what to subscribe to in a given summer therefore has to be answered series by series rather than once at the start of the season, and an away tour is the case most likely to catch a viewer out.

The anti-siphoning scheme explained

The scheme has existed since the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and rests on a simple mechanism. The Minister makes a notice listing events of national importance and cultural significance. While an event is listed, a subscription television licensee may not acquire the right to televise it in Australia unless a national broadcaster or a commercial free-to-air licensee has already acquired a right to televise it.

That is the whole restriction. It is about acquisition order, not about outcome. There is no must-buy rule, no must-show rule, and no requirement that a purchased event be shown live, in full, or on a main channel.

The list has never been small. Before the 2024 reforms it covered roughly 1,900 individual events across the Olympics, the AFL, rugby league, tennis, motorsport, racing and cricket. After the reforms it covers around 2,500.

• 1900Events listed before reform
• 2500Events listed after reform
• 6Months before an event that delisting occurs
• 1992Year the scheme began

Structural counts describing the scheme, not audience or revenue measures. Event totals are approximate figures cited when the reforms were introduced.

What cricket is actually protected

The modernised list that commenced on 17 December 2024 covers, for cricket: men's and women's Test, one-day and Twenty20 internationals played in Australia; men's and women's Ashes series played in Australia or the United Kingdom; and Australia's matches in the men's and women's ODI and Twenty20 World Cups together with those tournaments' finals, but only where they are played in Australia or New Zealand.

The addition of the complete men's and women's Ashes series in the United Kingdom was one of the significant changes made by the reforms. Away Ashes cricket had previously fallen outside the protection, which mattered because an Ashes tour of England is one of the few away series in any sport that a large Australian audience will stay up through the night for. The rivalry itself is covered in the guide to the Ashes.

The World Cup limitation is the gap that matters most. Protection applies only to tournaments staged in Australia or New Zealand, and global tournaments are mostly staged elsewhere.

Why World Cups moved behind a paywall

Prime Video acquired the ICC's global tournament rights in Australia from 2024 through to the end of 2027 — the men's and women's ODI and T20 World Cups, the Champions Trophy, World Test Championship finals and age-group events. It was the first time Australian rights to ICC events had gone entirely to an online service.

Two things made it possible. The anti-siphoning restriction, as it stood when the deal was struck, applied to subscription television licensees and not to streaming services, so a pure streaming platform could acquire listed events without any free-to-air step. And even after the reforms closed that hole, the listing itself only bites where a tournament is played in Australia or New Zealand — which no ICC global event in that rights window is.

The result is that an Australian can watch every home Test on free-to-air television and still need a separate subscription to watch Australia contest a World Cup final. That outcome is exactly what the anti-siphoning scheme was written to prevent, and it happened anyway, because the list was drafted around where matches are played rather than around who is playing.

What the 2024 reforms changed

The Communications Legislation Amendment for Prominence and Anti-siphoning passed Parliament in July 2024 and made three substantive changes.

First, it extended the acquisition restriction beyond subscription television to online and digital platform operators. Streaming services are now bound by the same rule.

Second, it modernised the list, expanding the number of protected events by around 30 per cent and adding, among others, AFLW and NRLW finals, women's State of Origin, the Summer Paralympics and the complete men's and women's Ashes series in the United Kingdom.

Third, it created a separate prominence framework requiring manufacturers of connected televisions sold in Australia to give the free-to-air broadcasters' apps prominent, pre-installed or auto-installed placement on the device's main interface, phased in over the following eighteen months. The reformed scheme and the new list commenced on 17 December 2024.

1. 1ListingThe Minister lists the event in the Broadcasting Services Events Notice, which for cricket covers home internationals and Ashes series in Australia or the United Kingdom.
2. 2Restriction appliesSubscription television licensees and, since the 2024 reforms, online and digital platform operators cannot acquire the rights while the restriction holds.
3. 3Free-to-air opportunityA national broadcaster or commercial free-to-air licensee may acquire the rights first, but is under no obligation to bid.
4. 4AcquisitionOnce a free-to-air broadcaster has acquired a right to televise the event, subscription and streaming services are free to acquire rights as well.
5. 5Automatic delistingIf no free-to-air acquisition occurs, the restriction lifts six months before the event begins and any service may then acquire it.
6. 6Broadcast decisionThe broadcaster that holds the rights decides whether, when and on which channel to show the event, since the scheme contains no obligation to televise.

The sequence set by the Broadcasting Services Act as amended in 2024. It describes acquisition order only and does not guarantee that any event is broadcast.

The gap the scheme still leaves

Three weaknesses persist after the reforms, and all three have already produced Australian cricket outcomes.

The first is that a free-to-air broadcaster who acquires a listed event is under no obligation to show it live, in full or at all. In 2018 men's one-day and Twenty20 internationals ended up exclusively on Fox Sports for six years despite being listed the entire time, because the free-to-air partner in that deal took Test cricket and part of the Big Bash and did not take the white-ball internationals.

The second is the geographic limitation on World Cup protection, which is why the biggest tournaments in the sport have moved to a subscription streaming service without the scheme being triggered at all.

The third is automatic delisting. The restriction lifts six months out, which is a long time before an event and a short time in a rights negotiation. A free-to-air network that is not going to bid can simply wait.

How a rights deal is actually put together

Cricket Australia does not simply auction a single package. A media negotiation carves the summer into components — Test cricket, white-ball internationals, the men's Big Bash, the WBBL, women's internationals, digital and highlights rights, and often the domestic first-class competition — and bidders can want very different combinations of them.

A free-to-air network wants a small number of very large audiences: Test cricket, particularly the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, and the Big Bash matches that fall in the summer holidays. A subscription operator wants volume, because subscribers are retained by having something on every night rather than by four big days a year. Those appetites are complementary rather than competing, which is why Australian cricket has repeatedly ended up with a joint free-to-air and subscription deal rather than a single exclusive holder.

The bidding also runs years early. The current agreement was announced in January 2023 for a term starting in 2024, with a year still to run on the previous deal. That lead time exists because both the board and the players need certainty about the revenue base before committing to a schedule and a pay agreement.

Why the free-to-air package is smaller than it looks

Seven's package is real but selective. Test cricket is there, and a portion of the Big Bash. Everything else varies by season and series, and the full schedule lives on the subscription side.

The commercial logic is straightforward. A free-to-air network sells advertising against an audience, and a mid-January one-day international on a Tuesday does not deliver an audience worth the production cost and the schedule disruption. A subscription service sells access, and the same match is worth having because it fills a night and gives a subscriber a reason not to cancel.

This is why the anti-siphoning scheme cannot deliver what most people assume it does. Listing an event does not make it commercially attractive to a free-to-air network. If the audience is not there, the network will not bid, and the restriction lifts at delisting anyway.

The streaming shift

The most consequential change in Australian cricket coverage over the past decade is not which network holds the rights but how people watch. Both halves of the current deal are available without an aerial: 7plus on the free side and Kayo on the paid side, with Prime Video carrying ICC events.

That has three effects. It makes the geographic boundaries of a rights deal harder to police, because a stream is not confined by a transmitter's footprint. It changes what "free-to-air" means, since a viewer with an internet connection and no television is now inside the free package. And it makes the prominence framework in the 2024 Act more important than the anti-siphoning list itself in the long run — a free service that cannot be found on a smart TV interface is not much freer than a paid one.

What Australians actually complain about

Three complaints recur, and it is worth separating the ones the law could fix from the ones it could not.

The first is that Australia's World Cup matches are behind a paywall. That is a listing design problem, and it could be fixed by protecting Australia's matches regardless of venue rather than only where the tournament is staged in Australia or New Zealand.

The second is that home white-ball internationals have at times been subscription-only despite being listed. That is not a listing problem but a consequence of the scheme having no must-show rule, and fixing it would require a substantially more interventionist law.

The third is fragmentation: a viewer who wants everything now needs a free service, a subscription service and a separate streaming subscription for global events. That is a market outcome no anti-siphoning provision addresses, since the scheme regulates acquisition order and not how many services a household must hold.

Radio, and the part of the coverage that predates all of this

Radio rights are negotiated separately from television and streaming, and cricket has been broadcast on Australian radio far longer than it has been televised. Ball-by-ball commentary through a summer's day remains a distinct product with a distinct audience, and it operates outside the anti-siphoning scheme entirely, since the scheme applies to television and, since 2024, to online and digital platforms.

Radio arrangements also change more frequently and with far less coverage than television deals. Anyone planning around a particular commentary team should check the current season rather than assume continuity.

The 2018 deal and what it taught everyone

The six-year agreement that began in 2018 is worth understanding on its own terms, because it is the experiment that produced most of the current arrangements and most of the current criticism.

It broke a forty-year incumbency, doubled the value of the rights, split cricket between a free-to-air and a subscription partner for the first time in a serious way, and moved men's one-day and Twenty20 internationals behind a paywall for six years despite their being on the anti-siphoning list throughout. It also ran into a pandemic that emptied grounds, rearranged tours and led to litigation between the board and its lead broadcaster.

By the time it was replaced, all parties had learnt something. Cricket Australia learnt that a partner will litigate if the product it paid for does not arrive. Seven learnt what a free-to-air package needs to contain to be worth the money. Foxtel learnt that volume works. And the public learnt that being on the anti-siphoning list guarantees nothing at all — which is the single most useful thing to know before reading any coverage of the next negotiation.

Anti-siphoning compared across the codes

Cricket is not the sport that tests the scheme hardest. The AFL and the NRL both have listed content and both run arrangements that put a large share of matches behind a subscription, with a free-to-air selection each round.

The difference is in season shape. A weekly winter competition can give free-to-air broadcasters a marquee game and keep the rest on subscription without anyone feeling that the sport has disappeared, because there is always something on. Cricket's marquee content is concentrated into a handful of days a year and its filler is a whole summer of white-ball matches, so when the filler moves to subscription the change is felt as a wholesale loss rather than as a selection.

The list also treats the codes differently in one respect that matters for cricket. Away Ashes cricket in the United Kingdom is now protected, which has no equivalent in the winter codes because their showpiece fixtures are all played at home. That addition in 2024 was cricket-specific, and it recognised something true about Australian viewing habits: an Ashes tour of England is watched here at three in the morning by numbers no other away series in any sport comes close to. The rivalry that generates those numbers is the most reliable audience Australian cricket has.

Questions worth asking before a summer starts

Four checks will tell you what you need before the cricket begins, and none of them can be answered from last season's arrangements.

Which matches in the home schedule are on the free-to-air package this season, since the free-to-air selection is not fixed across the term of a deal and varies by series.

Whether any tournament Australia is playing in falls outside Cricket Australia's own schedule, because an ICC event or an away tour has a different rights holder and may need a different subscription.

Whether the Big Bash fixtures you want are in the free selection, since only a portion of the shortened season appears on free-to-air.

And whether the delivery you plan to use is actually available on your device, which since 2024 has been a live question for anyone watching on a smart TV rather than a browser.

Who owns the broadcasters

The subscription half of Australian cricket changed hands in 2025. DAZN, the international sports streaming group, completed its acquisition of the Foxtel Group in April 2025 at an enterprise value of about US$2.2 billion, taking the cricket rights with it. Foxtel's portfolio at the time was described as the largest single holding of sports rights in Australia by value.

DAZN has indicated it will consolidate Fox Sports and Kayo Sports under the single Kayo Sports brand from 2027, at which point Fox Cricket becomes Kayo Cricket. The rights themselves do not change; the branding, the interface and the subscription structure do.

What the money pays for

Broadcast income is the largest single component of Cricket Australia's revenue, and under the agreement with the players' association a defined share of that revenue flows straight through to player payments.

That connection is the reason a media negotiation is really a pay negotiation held early. A rights deal signed in 2023 sets the revenue base that funds national contracts, state contracts and Big Bash salary caps for years afterwards. The mechanism is explained in the guide to the Australian cricket pay deal, and the contracts it funds in the guide to Cricket Australia central contracts.

What is left after player payments funds the rest of the game: the Sheffield Shield and the women's domestic competition, community facilities, participation programs and the administration of the sport across six states and two territories.

How cricket compares with the other codes

Cricket's domestic rights sit below the AFL's and in a comparable range to rugby league's, which is roughly what you would expect from a sport with a shorter season and a concentrated summer window rather than a national weekly competition running most of the year.

What cricket has that the winter codes do not is exclusivity of season. For ten weeks from late December, cricket has Australian sport largely to itself, and a rights holder is buying an uncontested window as much as a set of matches. That is worth a premium, and it is part of why the value per match in cricket compares reasonably with codes that stage far more games. The wider Australian sports rights picture takes in the rugby league and tennis markets alongside it.

What to watch next

Three things will decide what Australian cricket coverage looks like in the 2030s.

Whether the ICC's Australian rights return to a broadcaster with a free-to-air component when the current Prime Video arrangement ends after 2027, or whether global tournaments settle permanently behind subscriptions.

Whether the anti-siphoning list is amended to protect Australia's World Cup matches regardless of where they are played, which is the obvious fix to the gap the 2024 reforms did not close. The Act itself requires the scheme to be reviewed within two years of commencement, so the question is already scheduled.

And how the DAZN-owned Kayo behaves as a rights holder from 2027, since a global streaming group with a different cost structure to a traditional pay-television operator may value an Australian summer very differently when the current deal expires at the end of 2030-31.

Related reading

For the practical question of where to watch a particular series, see how to watch cricket in Australia. For the money side, the pay deal guide and the central contracts guide. For the game itself, the cricket in Australia hub, the history of Australian cricket, the Boxing Day Test at the MCG and the wider Australia sport hub.