I suspect quite quickly events such as The Ashes will go pay to view. Football almost did a couple of months ago but in my opinion they got greedy with the price point. Make it a fiver to access on line and who needs Sky?
Streaming is the future of live sports without a shadow of a doubt, whilst live television is very slowly but surely heading on the way out. It's why I wasn't upset when the Bob Willis Trophy final was on Youtube and the BBC iPlayer as opposed to Sky television, because ultimately it reached far more viewers this way. Amazon have a big Indian following and have already twigged the popularity of cricket. If they decide to go hard for the Ashes, Sky are in big trouble as they cannot compete financially. The Premier League could well go the same way down the line, although they may well decide to create their own streaming network like the NFL do as they have the audience power to do so.
I for one very rarely watch live television now as the vast majority of my viewing comes on my laptop from streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, iPlayer etc when I can watch at my leisure rather than having to tune in at a certain time. It's only really big sports matches that I watch live rather than on catch up.
As for the India match, Crawley's confirmed to be out injured which means Lawrence likely batting at three. What an opportunity for him! Double edged sword for us though, because if he gets a big score the IPL franchises will be calling and that'll be him gone for the whole of April, May and June.
