History of Cricket Telecasting
First time a cricket match was live telecasted on television in 1938, when British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) showed two Test matches of the Ashes Series between England and Australia. They chose two of the historic cricket grounds in shape of Lord’s
and the Oval for this occasion.
BBC has played immense role for the promotion of cricket on a larger scale. In 1963, it also became the first television channel to show a match in colours, rather than in monochrome.
In that era, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 Broadcasting Corporation also played a vital role in covering cricket at the highest level. For a number of years, BBC and ABC were the only major television channels, which telecasted live cricket matches. This was also the time when
cricket started to become a global sport and gained huge popularity in other countries as well.
However, cricket telecasting took a huge jump in 1970s because of a controversy in Australia. The controversy known as the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Kerry-Francis-Bullmore-Packer-c71015 affair, not only changed the complexion of cricket broadcasting, it also turned out to be a huge boost for the game itself
and increased its marketing value.
The owner of Channel Nine, Packer offered a handsome bid to the Australian cricket officials in order to get the television rights for the international and domestic matches in the country. However, the offer was rejected and the Aussie cricket authority
decided to keep their contract with ABC, which had been serving Australian cricket for years, although ABC offered a much lesser amount as compared to Channel Nine.
As a result, exasperated Packer decided to launch his own World Cricket Series in 1977 and hired the services of a number of world class cricketers from all the major cricket playing countries. He gave lucrative contracts to cricketers, which forced them
to prefer the World Cricket Series over representing their countries and playing international cricket.
Channel Nine was an emerging force in the world of television and they used and invented a lot of latest technologies like multiple cameras and stump camera.
Apart from the technological aspect, Kerry Packer introduced flood lights and white ball in cricket. This was introduced first time in the World Cricket Series and later on, flood lights and white ball became a necessity of limited overs cricket.
We can effectively say that Channel Nine changed the whole complexion of cricket and also shows that how a television channel can play a role for the betterment of the sport.
A similar sort of a controversy arose in 2007, when Zee Television Network in India was not given exclusive television rights by the Board of Control for Cricket in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 and as a result, just like Channel Nine in the 1970s, Zee also decided to launch a
cricket event by the name of Indian Cricket League (ICL), for which they contracted many high quality international cricketers.
However, the league was not recognized by the BCCI and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625 and it was considered as a rebellious league. Any player who took part in that league was banned from any type of professional cricket by different cricket boards all around the world. But it prompted
BCCI to start its own cash-rich league and they launched Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008, which turned out to be another huge moment in the history of cricket as the players were paid unbelievable salaries and more and more sponsors jumped into the game.
Since last two decades, a number of television channels in different countries have played a huge role for the betterment of cricket at international level as well as at the domestic front.
Super Sports in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c56013 and Channel Nine in Australia have not only covering international cricket matches but they have given special attention to their domestic cricket as well. It has helped these countries to raise the standard
of cricket at the national level, which has immensely benefited their performance at the highest stage of the game as well.
Channel Nine has always been a front-runner in innovating new technologies in cricket. The introduction of Hot Spot and Hawk Eye has changed the face of modern day cricket and it has also forced the International Cricket Council to implement the use of technology
for umpires, while making decisions in matches. Players can take the help of technology if they feel that the umpire has made an error while making the decision and this rule is called as the Umpires Decision Review System (UDRS).
Hence, we can easily state that television has played a tremendous role in the evolution of cricket.
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