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Cricket Australia to stream women's Big Bash online and Facebook

John Stensholt
By John Stensholt

Cricket Australia will produce and digitally stream almost all of the upcoming Women's Big Bash League domestic competition, including telecasting matches via Facebook.

The organisation will on Monday announce it is live streaming 47 matches of the WBBL free across its website and its Cricket Australia Live app, as well as – in a first for Australian women's sport – via the WBBL Facebook page.

The remaining 12 matches of the competition are being shown by Network Ten, which has exclusive free-to-air rights to the highly-successful men's Big Bash League, for which it pays $20 million annually.

Cricket Australia will produce and digitally stream 47 WBBL matches this season. Darrian Traynor

Ten will show four matches over the first weekend of the WBBL beginning December 10, including a prime-time match on Saturday evening on its main channel. Cricket Australia said it would be the first time a standalone women's sporting competition will be broadcast in prime time on a commercial free-to-air television network's main channel. Ten of the 12 games the network will show will be on its main channel.

Cricket Australia is understood to be shelling out several hundred thousand dollars on the broadcasts, which will be covered by four cameras at each ground and a commentary team.

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"The WBBL live streaming represents a considerable investment into the competition and demonstrates how serious Cricket Australia is about attracting more girls and women to our game," said the organisation's executive general manager of media, Ben Amarfio.

Ten and Nine Entertainment Co, which Cricket Australia is in a digital joint venture, are in the fourth year of a five-year $500 million broadcast deal covering international and domestic cricket.

Cricket Australia has already begun sounding out broadcasters regarding a new deal, which could fetch as much as $200 million annually. Optus, which has some digital rights, could be among the bidders as could pay-television network Fox Sports.

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