Channel Nine secures cricket rights in record deal Channel Nine has officially retained the rights to broadcast international cricket in Australia for the next five years. In the richest television agreement in the game's history, Nine will pay in the region of $450 million in cash and contra advertising to televise home international matches between November and February. Nine trumped Network Ten by exercising its last-rights privilege from its previous contract with Cricket Australia. Nine management signed the documentation for the deal in Sydney at 4.10pm on Monday afternoon, 50 minutes before the deadline, formally clinching the sought-after broadcast rights. "Nine Entertainment is today a larger, stronger and more profitable company than it was yesterday," Nine chief executive David Gyngell said. Staff at the network were told earlier on Monday that the network had kept the coverage of the cricket. The new deal will be formally announced by CA in Melbourne on Tuesday afternoon. Ten, who had lodged a huge $550m bid to cover international games and the Twenty20 Big Bash League, have snatched the short-format competition for $20m a year over five years, taking it to free-to-air television from its previous rights holder, Fox Sports. The bidding war between Nine and Ten has resulted in a major financial boon for Cricket Australia. In the previous seven-year association between CA and Nine the network paid only $45m a year. They will now dish out about $80m a year for the next five years. The Nine and Ten deals - for international cricket and the Big Bash respectively - also add to a healthy overall television rights pie that has been compiled by CA. As previously reported by Fairfax Media, when this rights package is combined with the existing deals for the coverage of matches in Australia in other parts of the world, including India, its 35 per cent share of the T20 Champions League and a dividend from the television rights for ICC competitions - the total value of CA's broadcast contracts now exceeds $1 billion.