Cricket Australia looking for anti-siphoning reforms

Cricket Australia is hoping to persuade the national government to give the governing body the chance to take some short-form national team matches off the so-called anti-siphoning list.

Cricket Australia is hoping that some Twenty20 and one-day international matches might be taken off the list, which reserves events and competitions for free-to-air television in the country.

The governing body is preparing to open talks over a new rights deal, with a spokesman telling the Australian newspaper that formal negotiations will begin next year with a view to concluding the contracts before the start of next year’s Ashes series between Australia and England in November 2017.

Cricket Australia has become increasingly frustrated that rival sporting bodies, such as rugby league’s National Rugby League and the Australian Football League Aussie rules competition, are allowed to put some of their content on pay-television platforms on an exclusive basis.