Wake up to the video revolution

That’s right. But even if the BBC’s content is only available in the UK, that still amounts to a significant amount of content available for millions, easily and for free (apart from the licence tax, admittedly).

The problem sport faces is with the influx of recording devices. Over the next decade, our cameraphones will be recording HD content and there’s nothing stopping people uploading them straight from the action. And that’s the way it should be. Most boards’ money comes from television revenues and I understand how cautious they therefore are when Youtube and co offer similar content for free. But TV companies need to realise that their current product, though a big earner, is by no means sacred.

Perhaps the bigger issue is that cricket and sporting bodies will need to either look beyond television as their principle revenue generator, and we might even see some boards (the BCCI in particular) doing more stuff in-house.