But confirmation that News Corp's Foxtel, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and Seven West Media, controlled by Kerry Stokes, have wrested the rights from Channel Nine represent not just a billion -dollar shake-up in television broadcast, but a changing of the guard in the cultural order.

Nine's successful decades-long relationship with cricket has created cultural icons of players, commentators, memorable competitions such as Classic Catches, and technological advances such as stumpcams, creating jobs and livelihoods for many and entertainment for many more.

Where the late Kerry Packer shook things up via revolution, reinventing broadcasting of the game and bringing cricket as mass entertainment to our living room, this change is more evolution - but no less significant.

As evidenced by the recent ball tampering scandal, the public feels great ownership of the national game - such was the outcry that the national captain and vice-captain were rubbed out for a year in an unprecendented sanction over cheating.

So a new broadcast home of cricket comes with execution and acceptance risks.

There will be easy wins. Nine has long been criticised for its male-dominated coverage while Seven has successfully featured female hosts for years in its coverage of the Australian Open tennis. Seven can ensure an early win by promoting talented female broadcasters to refresh the game's image. It can also make a virtue of broadcasting women's games. It's also likely that many of the production staff will switch from Nine to Seven, enabling smooth technical transition.

But Seven and Foxtel have wagered heavily at a time when Australian media still faces significant structural headwinds and they will be rightly seeking returns on their significant investment. Foxtel wants to expand its share of audience from the 30 per cent of Australian homes it's in now. Seven wants to offer advertisers a passionate engaged audience and a platform to promote its other programs.

Regulatory hurdles must also be passed.

Foxtel and Seven plan to simulcast Test matches and the Big Bash domestic Twenty20 competition, ensuring they remain on free-to-air. But Foxtel wants to broadcast men's one-day internationals, currently on the anti-siphoning list, only on its pay for view service.

Communications minister Mitch Fifield will be asked to determine whether one-day internationals maintain the status to be kept on the anti-siphoning list. There are arguments both ways. Passion for one-day cricket isn't what it was 20 years ago. Such has been the shortening of our collective attention span, where 50-over cricket once proved attractive for the casual viewer by getting rid of the boring bits of long-form cricket - now Twenty20 gets rid of the boring bits from the short-form game. It's a game literally stuck in the middle even if it still rates well.

Foxtel hopes the attraction of wall-to-wall cricket content will be a lure for cricket fans. But will holding the rights to a declining form of the game in international ODIs provide the lure to the Murdoch empire's desire to grow viewers and revenue on its pay service?

Cricket Australia has garnered a hefty premium for the rights - but is there potential for alienating fans by hiving off a popular yet declining form of the game behind a paywall?

While Nine can take some solace in obtaining the rights to the Australian Open tennis in January, those rights currently don't start for another year. When the first strike of leather on willow sounds later this year, none of it will be heard on the Nine Network. And that will take some getting used to.