The media seems to think that Channel 10 will get the rights for...

The media seems to think that Channel 10 will get the rights for the BBL. Channel 9 has the last rights, but reports have said that 10 has put a much larger bid in for the 5 year rights.

This could be a bit of a coup for 10 as they desperately need a marquee sport. Some reports have stated that 10 are paying too much. I suppose the rights would be worth more for 10 than what they would be for Fox. Ten need a decent sport not only for advertisement revenue, but also for cross promotion of other shows on their network.

The ratings for the Big Bash on the Fox network are below. From what i can gather, the 1st year was a bigger year, but that was probably due to the novelty of Shane Warne's return to cricket. Cricket Australia has recognised that figures were down on pre Xmas and are making changes to capitalise on the market.

Taking into consideration the ratings are for Fox, you would think free to air would increase that figure (not sure by how much). I am still trying to look for the differences between free to air tv ratings as compared to Fox. Does anyone know what the difference is?

Anyway, the ratings for the BBL are as follows:

Average TV Ratings
Average TV Audience: 232,864
Total TV Audience: 7,838,234

Looking at the average, it is nearly comparable to a lower level AFL game on Fox. To put it into perspective, the A League Grand Final, which is perceived to be a HUGE success attracted 297,000. My guess is that would be a touch disappointing for the A League, even though the game itself was well attended. The NRL generally rates the highest of the sports and even on the same day and time as the A League Final the NRL's City v Country still attracted 323,000 which was for a game that had little interest, especially in QLD and is only shown in 2 states.

So, the BBL generally is well above the A League in the season proper and is nearly equal to a lower ratings AFL match.

I would like to research more into this and try to break down the value of this to channel 10 and figure out if they are paying too much if they get the rights.

Would welcome some further info on it if anyone can come up with it.