This is a time of transition for basically every sport, sports team, sports league, and sports organisation on the planet and it ain’t unreasonable to think the ramifications of the coronavirus could linger for years. It’s going to be challenging, no doubt. It’s also an opportunity to reassess and create more sustainable ways of doing things as we’re shaken out of our complacency. This is the time to stop doing things the way they’ve already been done just for the sake of it. We’ll see over the next several months which sporting orgs have that vision and which don’t. It’s going to be blatantly obvious.

But cricket coverage in Aotearoa has been preparing for a massive shift regardless of the pandemic. When lockdown began Sky Sport NZ were rounding down the final year of their domestic cricket coverage hoping to say farewell with the last few T20 internationals against Australia – a variation of the sport that didn’t even exist when they first got the cricket coverage more than two decades ago. As lockdown comes to an end we’ve now officially begun the Spark Sport Era.

The news broke last October that this was coming... except back then it was still an abstract idea. We then had a big old home summer, welcoming England and India to our shores, and everything was business as usual for Sky Sport. But now it ain’t an abstract thing, it ain’t a future thing. The broadcast rights have changed hands for real and cricket in this country is now on the streaming wagon. Sky Sport Summers of Cricket are dead, having bled out on the side of a dusty road while Spark Sport Summers of Cricket rode away on their live streaming horse with a blood-tipped weapon at their hip.

Okay then. Sweet. I mean, I don’t particularly care where the cricket coverage is. I have some reservations about the viability of streaming an entire day’s Test cricket but it’s certainly do-able. And anyway it doesn’t matter what I think. To borrow a popular idiom of sportsfolk the world over: it is what it is. In a funny way this whole pandemic crisis thing has cushioned the landing for Spark Sport (who let’s be honest are still in a precarious place as they try to earn viewer trust after rattling the cages of the classic kiwi sports watcher). But I just wanna know what it’s gonna look like and who’ll be commentating on.

First things first, the actual deal lasts for six years (starting now) and includes all Blackcaps and White Ferns home matches, all Super Smash matches, the Ford Trophy final, and the NZC Awards. Nobody really cares about that last one while the rest of it is just what was already on telly with Sky. You’d assume from this that NZC can still do whatever they want with the rest of the domestic cricket schedule (and even home NZA games if they wanted to)... but don’t hold your breath there. They already have the pooch cam highlight scoreboards for those games which is cool – like, that’s a legit incredible resource there for fans – so surely live streaming Shield games is a leap they could comfortably make from there. But this isn’t really the year to expect innovation from kiwi sporting orgs... and for once that’s probably fair enough.

The Sparkies don’t have away tours. Those’ll most likely remain on Sky Sport unless further deals are struck with overseas broadcasters although most of those overseas ‘casters are gonna be telly companies in similar situations to Sky Sport themselves which may be a sneaky undercurrent to all this. Or not, the money tends to talk loudest. But Sky Sport NZ do have existing relationships with all the relevant jokers. They’re especially chummy with Fox Sports Aussie these days who of course now have the cricket over there – Sky have those rights locked down for the same duration as Spark’s local rights. Plus Sky waited until the day after the Spark Sport + NZC announcement last year to reveal they’d re-upped for four more years with the ICC broadcasts themselves. Something sweet to help the medicine go down.

Which means that we won’t actually see any live cricket coverage on Spark Sport until at least October when the West Indies and Bangladesh are due to pop by for some warm-up T20 series before the World T20... and we don’t even know if that tournament will go ahead yet either. At this stage preparations are all still ongoing but those pre-tourney series might be more suspect, dunno. After that the West Indies come back in November for a few ICC Test Championship matches, then Pakistan pop by to do the same with some added T20s for no apparent reason. That’s just based on the Future Tours programme though, all of it is subject to change because of the pandemic. Poor old Sparkies, if they have to wait any longer than that they’ll be getting blue balls, yikes.

Which means that for now all we’ve got to go on is the content they rolled our for The Great Unveiling of Spark Sport Cricket... and despite the PR chatter to the contrary there isn’t all that much to feast upon there. They’ve got highlights from the recent India series all there as well as a bunch of classic matches... the same kind of classic matches that every broadcaster is offering up at the moment in the absence of any, you know, current matches. Those all seem to be the of-the-time Sky Sport coverage too which must have those Sky fellas seething to see stuff they produced with a rival’s logo slapped on it (to be fair, the literal production itself is outsourced and Spark are still in negotiations for a production partner). There are different graphics on the India series though, not sure if that’s a Spark preview or a global broadcaster thing or what. However some of the classic games do have new little interviews appended to them with folks that were involved, the likes of Brendon McCullum, Craig McMillan, Ross Taylor, and Sophie Devine having a chat with Scotty Stevenson. Nothing much to glean from them but it’s something different and original.

From Spark’s initial press release back in October 2019: “We’re looking forward to bringing a fresh look and feel to the coverage of cricket, including an engaging commentary team, world class decision review systems, team and individual analysis and on-screen graphics.”

Similarly old Sumo Stevenson seems to be spreading his wings all over this because he’s also done a few quiz master pieces with some current players as well as the trendy lockdown XI games too. Skype chats with Blackcaps and White Ferns players to pick their all time teams... again, it’s a nice feature but it’s the same content we’re getting from everywhere else so nothing that stands them aside. The classic games vault is shallow but there are some bangers in there for sure and it’s useful having a few all in one place like that – particularly since the goons on YouTube are always taking down the good longform cricket highlights from there. Coincidentally anything that involves India in any way seems to disappear instantly with a copyright warning. Hmm, strange one. But that’s what’s up there right now.

As for graphics, they’re a massive part of the coverage but they’re also kinda hard to get wrong. Hopefully the end of Sky means the end of that inane WASP prediction yarn but other than that everybody uses the same tricks. And as long as the on-screen scoreboard is nice and clear, easy to read, then it’s doing what it’s there to do. If you’ve just jumped on the stream then you need to be able to see immediately, at any moment, what the current score and game situation are. Simple enough. (I wonder if they’ll do anything funky with the internet possibilities, like customisable graphics?).

Which brings us to the biggest unknown of all: the commentary team. Up until now most of the top tier sport that Spark has had has been overseas stuff where they’re just the distributor, like the Premier League. Here they’ve gotta produce the coverage as well. The closest they’ve come to that was the Rugby World Cup which is produced by World Rugby but which they still needed to package with commentary and all that.

The face of that coverage was Scotty Stevenson. Since the Rugby World Cup’s not exactly an ongoing thing this cricket coverage is going to be Spark’s gold standard production now so their current lead broadcaster has to play some sort of a prominent role. Yet getting the rugby guy to front it, even if he is a marquee broadcaster that they’ve lured over from the enemy, isn’t quite the fresh and modern product we’re being promised. It’s a weird one. Not entirely sure why, maybe it’s just me, but whatever. By the way, Sumo sure has a hefty looking bookcase doesn’t he? Wouldn’t mind a tour of that bad boy. Bit hard to see how many of those spines are cracked from this range.

Spark’s under some pressure to deliver here. They eventually got to a good place with the Rugby World Cup but those early hiccups are going to prove hard to get over and this is a much heftier undertaking. Luring in someone like Stevenson shows they’re willing to play the game, giving people what they expect rather than getting revolutionary with it (which is the right way to do it, generationally-set viewing habits only change by slow process and the streaming thing is already enough of a shock). They also dug themselves an uncut gem in Stephen Donald for that tourney with his commentary offerings a big success. On the one hand Beaver is a fresh voice given an opportunity which is super exciting for what they might do with the cricket. On the other hand he’s a rugby cult hero whose role in one of the most important All Blacks victories of all is his biggest selling point. So maybe he wasn’t that imaginative a signing after all.

But there’s a difference between these two situations because Sky Sport still have all the other rugby. So all their commentators are locked and loaded with that crew and Spark didn’t have a lot to choose from. With the cricket, that’s not the case. All those Sky commentators are on the loose now from cricket calling duties... with the exception of any extra-curricular travels (Simon Doull’s ICC event efforts, for example, which doesn’t clash with his domestic efforts). That gives Spark a few options if they wanna continue to flash the cash. A bit of extra continuity by raiding the talent stocks of the competition, why not?

One bloke who won’t be following the rights over to Spark is Ian Smith. 2019 might have been the year of Smithy from his World Cup excellence to his jaunts with the Fox Sports Aussie people to his granddaddy of cricket role in the Sky box but he’s also a prominent voice in Sky’s rugby coverage and he’s re-signed with the satellite broadcasters to end all speculation. Meanwhile Mark Richardson is probably out of the game too since his presence as a Mediaworks personality would be a red flag for Spark given their TVNZ associations (which include some cricket games expected to be broadcast free to air). Other Sky commentators have been used in non-cricket roles now and then too although not to where they’re indispensable. The likes of Craig Cumming, Frankie Mackay, and Scott Styris could be on the shopping list.

The fella they absolutely should be targeting is Mike Hesson. Coach Hess has been superb in the comms box in both a live calling context and also an analyst role. He reads the game on a deeper level than most and communicates it extremely well. Plus he only had like two summers with the Sky team so it’s not like he brings any baggage. That kind of insightful commentary is the modern trend. He’d do great... buuuuut we’re reliably informed he’s also contracted to Sky so that probably ain’t happening.

However Brendon McCullum, who already has his face on Spark’s cricket page from doing one of those classic match interviews, is cricket’s exact mirror image of Stephen Donald for the rugby coverage. Goes without saying that he’d be a superb addition. Plenty of other ex-players will be lining up too, though that’s a slippery slope to traverse given the proliferation of big name player/terrible commentators around world sport.

Would Brian Waddle and Jeremy Coney be interested? For that matter, same goes for the fine voices of Daniel McHardy, Andrew Alderson, Nigel Yalden, and Pete McGlashan. The radio rights are still up in the air since Radio Sport lost out (before the station was viciously murdered... though I suspect it’ll be revived like Jon Snow once the cheques start clearing again). NZC CEO David White reckons they remain in ongoing negotiations with other parties (it was a financial decision so you don’t go from some to none and call it good business – those rights will be sold somewhere... hey it might not even be impossible that an undead Radio Sport comes back into the game).

Spark could go a number of ways here. They could get the classy radio fellas and present a polished and intelligent product. They could get a bunch of big names, irrespective of broadcasting ability, and we can spend the whole of an ODI listening to them reliving past glories and bantering about golf. Or they could do the riskiest bit of all and try to walk the line with a combination of both.

It’ll be a tricky and crucial balance to find, you need a range of personalities and perspectives to make a great commentary team and even if they smack it out of the park it’s still gonna take some getting used to. In many ways the timing of this has been fortunate. There’s going to be a trend of big change all over the place to help ease this one through while most of the renowned cricket commentators in this country are potentially available (except for the one most recognisable chap). The production shouldn’t be a drama once the right partner comes aboard. The commentary though, the vocal link between coverage and viewer, the most direct aspect of it all, not so much. But they’ve still got a bunch more months to figure it out.

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