Ashes Online Blackout In Australia; Only BBC Deal
How moronic can you get about online sports rights? This summer’s Ashes cricket series online, being held in Australia, has banned online video coverage of the much-anticipated battle between Australia and England, starting in Brisbane on November 23. The online shutdown applies not only to match play, but to post-match press conferences, player interviews and even interviews with fans.
It follows other such bans by Aussie leagues NRL and AFL, but earlier this year the Victorian Racing Council (VRC) relented after trying to ban online reporters from covering the Melbourne Cup.
Only the BBC website – under a commercial deal with Cricket Australia – will be allowed to webcast Ashes matchplay, press conferences or player interviews inside venues. Australian fans are likely to be blocked from the BBC content.
Ridiculous.
Completely agree Rafat. As a kid I remember being furious when Channel Nine Australia would cut the live coverage after the first few hours of play because the local stadium wasn't sold out.
I grew to somewhat understand the need for that (though I certainly didn't agree with it)… but putting up international roadblocks like this is far too restrictive.
you'd think people would pay for this. I thought willow.tv had the rights for the online ppv?
I'm watching the cricket right now for free via Sopcast a p2p streaming app based in China .This is OK if you don't mind buffering every 10 mins .
Events like the Cricket need to be advertising supported in overseas markets with Geo IP filtering to target the commercials to the locale .
A encrypted P2P stream would save on the bandwdith costs ….