Nick Goodway: BT has bought cricket TV rights at a bargain now but price is set to shoot up

At £80 million, BT Sport’s deal to show the 2017-18 Ashes — along with all other Australian home international cricket matches and a slew of KFC Big Bash games from the domestic 20/20 tournament for five years — looks something of a bargain.

After all, when BT and Sky recently bid £5.14 billion for the Premier League football rights for three years from 2016, they ended up paying an average of more than £10 million a match.

That works out at something like £111,000 per minute of actual playing time.

By contrast, BT Sport (even if you ignore the other internationals and the bish bosh bash of 20/20 which are included, and work on the basis that Test matches run for no more than four days at the moment) is paying £80 million for around 20 days of top-class cricket.

Take that at the scheduled six hours’ play per day and it works out at a measly £666,000 an hour, or just more than £11,000 per minute, one-tenth of the price of the Premier League rights.

What is more interesting is what will happen from 2019 when Sky’s contract with the ECB comes to an end.

BT Sport has shown itself more than ready to bid up top sports rights.

One thing’s for sure — and forgive the pun — the ECB will be making a lot more money from 2020 come 2020.