The England Cricket Board intend to take their whole portfolio of TV rights, including the new franchise-style T20 tournament, to the market this summer, although the new contracts will not start until 2020.
ECB chief executive Tom Harrison is determined to sell the rights three years in advance because he believes the middle of 2017 is the best place to position cricket within the dominant football rights cycle.
Harrison and his advisers are banking on the loser in the tussle between Sky and BT Sport for the next Champions League contract in March having a war chest to spend on cricket instead.
ECB chief executive Tom Harrison is determined to sell the rights three years in advance
In addition, the ECB wanted to keep their sale of rights well away from the next billion-pound Premier League tender, which will probably kick off in the first half of 2018.
This merry-go-round of TV rights is also being monitored by the Football League as they ponder when they next sell their rights. They will hope the subscription network that misses out on the Champions League will spend millions on football rather than cricket.
Meanwhile, the ECB game plan depends on their proposed T20 equivalent of the Big Bash receiving the go-ahead in March.
Football League chief executive Shaun Harvey is monitoring the TV rights merry-go-round
Two decades after his best-selling autobiography Addicted detailed his battle against alcoholism, Arsenal great Tony Adams is writing the sequel — again in partnership with journalist Ian Ridley — about his 20 years on the wagon.
The book, to be published in June by Simon & Schuster, is simply titled Sober. Adams has been working as sporting director of Chinese Super League club Chongqing Lifan.
Tony Adams is releasing a book called Sober in June – a sequel to the very popular Addicted
Alan Shearer only has to wait for more people to die in the United States for his pension fund to recover, according to his former financial adviser Kevin Neal, against whom the Match of the Day pundit is taking multi-million-pound legal action for ‘mis-sold’ investments.
The Fortress International Fund based in the British Virgin Islands, into which Shearer heavily invested, uses clients’ money to buy up life insurance policies in the United States.
Neal says any money Shearer has lost in that fund will be recouped ‘when people peg out, to put it bluntly’, and that the Premier League’s record goalscorer makes no mention about the ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds he’s made through a similarly run Fortress fund based in Luxembourg, which he was very keen on’.
Alan Shearer is a long-standing pundit on BBC One’s Match of the Day programme
Neal, who no longer works in wealth management, added: ‘Alan knows about the high risks in this type of investment and signed all the necessary documents and more relating to it.
‘I invested other footballers’ money in these schemes but have had no other complaints. Shearer has turned this into a personal vendetta against me.’
Shearer’s representative declined numerous opportunities to comment.
Wayne Rooney is unlikely to take up mega-offers from China any time soon. But if he eventually ends up in the Far East, his agents are well placed to make the most of it.
The Triple S agency, owned by Paul Stretford and father and son Freddy and Kenneth Shepherd, control digital media company Red Lantern, who engage with audiences in boom territory China. Red Lantern’s client list includes the Premier League and the All England Club.
Wayne Rooney is unlikely to take up any mega offers from China any time soon
Discovery’s dig at Sky
Media giants Discovery, involved in an acrimonious price war with Sky, are promoting their coverage of the Australian Open finals on Eurosport with a poster of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and the Williams sisters with the provocative strap-line: ‘If they played football, maybe Sky would love them like you do.’
Sky have balked at renewing the portfolio of Discovery channels because of the price hike — following Discovery’s huge spend on Olympic Games rights — that includes charging more than double for bland Eurosport coverage.
Roger Federer’s clash with Rafael Nadal is one of the most anticipated in recent years
Lancashire disingenuously promoted their record of producing young cricket talent in the press release shamelessly announcing two more Kolpak signings, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and South African Dane Vilas, before Brexit potentially closes down that opportunity.