KEY POINTS:
The International Cricket Council's impending, staggering broadcast deal with ESPN-Star will not make New Zealand Cricket (NZC) rich - but it will underpin the sport here for the next eight years.
NZC boss Martin Snedden is expecting a "greater injection of funds" as a result of the ICC-ESPN deal reportedly worth $1.1 billion.
The exact figure is not known but it could be as much as double the existing Global Cricket Corporation deal which ends after next year's World Cup in the Caribbean. Outside its own income streams and the sale of broadcasting rights to New Zealand matches, NZC's main source of revenue is dividends from the sale of broadcasting rights to ICC-run tournaments.
ESPN has bought the rights for the nine main events (and several second-tier events, including age-group world cups), starting with the Twenty20 world cup through to the Australasian-hosted 2015 World Cup.
The major beneficiaries of the deal, which should be finalised any day, will be the 10 full-member nations, although the ICC also wants to grow the sport worldwide.
There have been a couple of aborted attempts to crack the American market but, with such an established summer pastime as baseball, newer, burgeoning markets in Asia might become the focus.
"It's no secret that a significant amount of the revenue is generated out of the Asian market, particularly India," Snedden said.
It's hard to say where the real power in the game belongs now, though it's a safe bet the ICC's shiny new offices in Dubai come a distant fourth to ESPN-Star, the BCCI and the Indian middle classes who are increasingly armed with remote controls.
The latter make up the most significant boon to cricket since Kerry Packer told Tony Greig to get him some players in return for a sinecure. Packer ramped up the value of cricket; India's burgeoning consumerism is doing the same.
A significant cash injection will not only underpin existing high performance structures and programmes but could see an increase in the volume of domestic cricket.
The players have long lobbied for two rounds of the State Championship but that has been shelved in favour of an extended A programme. Now they might get both, although Snedden cautioned it was too early to speculate.
There has been concern that ESPN-Star's money will come with conditions. They will want more intrusive coverage but you have to weigh up whether that is necessarily a bad thing.
Despite an ever-increasing market of old and new media outlets, cricket has survived with the same set of protocols - pre-match interviews, selected interviews after a day's play and post-match interviews - for an age.
Narrowcasters and broadcasters want and expect more. There is a feeling cricket teams and cricketers have been negligent in bridging the gap between themselves and the fans, some wanting precious little to do with the media until their careers are up and they want to move into the commentary box.
There is no good reason why a century-maker or a bowler who has ripped through the opposition cannot give five minutes of his time for on-the-spot interviews immediately after his innings or in the next break.
To a small extent, it is happening already at the Ashes and more particularly during Twenty20 matches.
ESPN might expect more. After all, they've paid through the nose for it.
