The Cricketer reports that counties met recently to discuss the future of live streaming. It reports:
"One of the takeaways from the meeting of the counties – attended by the majority, but not all – with general consensus that it isn't feasible, at a time where finances are limited at several counties, to not be trying to make money from a summer-long streaming service that can essentially operate as a digital season ticket. That is particularly the case where the product is a bells-and-whistles, multi-camera operation, often expensive to run and, in some situations, good enough to be carried by Sky Sports.
While the monetisation of streams is seen as a necessary inevitability in the not-too-distant future, in whatever form that takes, some counties feel more comfortable than others about the use of a paywall because of the money that has gone into production values. At other grounds, where the crux of the coverage might be little more than a couple of static cameras, that might not be the case.
There are also those who are reluctant to put their product behind a paywall for the reason that keeping their product free to view acts as a marketing tool to encourage in-person attendance at matches and retains a connection between fans and the team, while paywalling also brings questions around the use of match-clips on social media."