Fox Cricket is an Australian subscription television channel dedicated to screening cricket (both domestic and international) matches and related programming. It is owned by Fox Sports Pty Limited and is available throughout Australia on Foxtel. The channel was launched on 17 September 2018.[1]
History
Since its launch in 1995 as Premier Sports Network, Fox Sports has been broadcaster to most of Australian international tours despite lacking domestic Australian international rights which has been a mainstay at the Nine Network since 1979. The first major cricket event that was broadcast on PSN was Australia's tour of the West Indies in 1995 which was also the first on pay television in Australia. Nine who up to 1995 had broadcast on free-to-air had tried to keep off PTV [2] under Australia's anti-siphoning rules, which rules that certain events cannot be screened exclusively on pay television. Ultimately a deal was signed with Network Ten to the broadcast series on FTA while also being on PTV with PSN. From 2005/06 to 2012/13 Fox Sports had exclusive rights to domestic cricket in Australia including most or all of the then Ford Ranger One-Day cup and KFC Big Bash T20 matches including the first 2 seasons of the Big Bash League along with the final of the Sheffield Shield, Fox also had highlights of international men's Test, ODI and T20 matches in Australia. In 2013, Fox Sports lost the rights of the BBL to Network Ten and the Ryobi One-Day Cup to the Nine Network for the next 5 years with international cricket in Australia remaining on Nine. Most overseas cricket broadcast stayed on Fox except for Ashes tours of England which Nine had exclusive rights to while the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup which was held in Australia was broadcast on Fox Sports along with Nine.
In April 2018, Fox Sports came to a six-year agreement with Cricket Australia that expanded their previous coverage of cricket on the Foxtel platform. This deal formed a part of Cricket Australia's six year overall coverage deal which also includes free to air coverage by Channel Seven.[3]
In early May, Foxtel announced the upcoming creation of a dedicated channel, Fox Cricket, featuring the entire Australian Summer of international cricket from 2018 and 2019 including tests, one day matches and T20 matches as well as the Big Bash Leagues and World Cups.[4] The channel debuted on 17 September 2018, with the 2018 Caribbean Premier League final being the first live match broadcast.
Programming
Event coverage
Sports programming on Fox Cricket includes the following:[5]
Media outlets announced a number of key hosting and commentary personnel in the lead up to the 2018–19 cricket season.[7][8][9][10][11]
Network personalities and the media attended the launch for Fox Cricket on 9 October 2018. Further key hosting personnel were announced, in addition to new programming for the forthcoming summer.[6]
