Channel 9 have announced that they have secured a new 5 year TV rights deal with Cricket Australia, and as part of the new right deal have also announced a raft of new sponsorship deals. The new sponsorships involved came about as a result of a minimum sponsorship clause in the TV rights deal, designed to increase the cash flow to top CA executives and change the face of cricket coverage as we know it.
A major part of the new sponsorship deals involves branding all elements of the game, beginning wth the next local test series. KFC has sponsored the playing equipment and the stumps will now be known as the ‘crispy strips’, the ball as a ‘popcorn chicken’, the bat as an ‘original recipe drumstick’, the helmet as a bucket and the wicket keeping gloves as ‘two hands hungry for deep fried chicken’. Other elements will be branded as well, including fours which will now be a ‘domestic quantas flight’, with sixes the international equivalent. The umpires will now be known as the ‘Commonwealth Bosses’ or ‘scumbags’ for short, and the players will all now be known as ‘happy VB drinkers’. Whenever a player makes a mistake in the field it will be called ‘another channel 10 blunder’, and whenever a batsman is out it will be ‘channel 7 stuffing up again’.
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Clarke creams a delicious pull shot in his new gear
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Cross promotion of channel 9 shows will also be an important part of the new advertising. As a minimum, every sentence must be finished with a description of channel 9’s newest attempt at a show, with Ian Healy required to butt in for no reason to plug a show at least twice an over. The newest camera innovation, the ‘cross promotion cam’ will also be introduced, which will superimpose the heads of channel 9 personalities onto the players.
A channel 9 executive commented on the new deal saying it was “the best thing that ever happened to channel 9, and therefore cricket. The new money from advertising will allow us to implement a number of new camera initiatives including a camera in the stumps pointing directly upwards, a camera attached to a bird which flies around the stadium, and even a number of cameras in the change room so we can see exactly what the players are doing in glorious 3D. We also hope to implement multiple segway cameras on the field during play, although the rules of cricket will have to be amended so that the players are made to avoid them. Rest assured though that that Ian Healy will not be allowed anywhere near that one”. It was also suggested that the infamous comfort meter might be re-introduced, as well as a device fitted to the players which measures how hungry they are, and an anal probe.
The 'Strine 