Cricket Australia says a shorter, sharper Big Bash League season will allow marquee players to feature more often, with 18 games to be slashed from the next TV rights deal.
Cricket officials and the Seven Network ended years of bickering on Tuesday, with the free-to-air network to continue broadcasting the sport until 2030-31.
The seven-year deal with Seven and Foxtel is worth $1.512 billion for Cricket Australia (CA), representing a 10 per cent increase on the previous contract.
The agreement means a status quo in broadcasting rights, after CA knocked back significant interest from Network 10 and Paramount.
Foxtel retains the rights to all matches, while Seven will continue to broadcast all men's Tests and women's internationals, along with most BBL matches.
The biggest change will come in the BBL competition. The schedule will be reduced from 61 games to 43, with clubs to play 10 regular-season matches each, rather than the current 14.
This ensures the tournament can be played inside five-and-a-half weeks and within the school holiday period.
Foxtel will claim exclusive rights to Saturday matches, with Seven to broadcast all other games and pick up streaming rights to BBL and international fixtures it broadcasts.
The deal is set to begin in 2024-25, but there is potential the parties could agree to make changes to the BBL from next summer.
"It allows us to really tighten it into the school holidays," CA chief executive Nick Hockley said.
"The reset around the BBL does address some of those concerns, which were around the matches weren't maybe on at the best time.
"Now we've increased the proportion of prime-time slots.
"It reduces the overlap, whether it is future tours or other tournaments in other countries. There is increased player availability."
In the next memorandum of understanding, Australian players will likely be pushed to feature in the BBL when not on international duty.
Last year's draft has also shown a push from CA to entice more overseas talent, with fewer games likely to address workload concerns.
The new deal means Seven will drop legal action against CA over the recent COVID-impacted BBL summers, which it claimed damaged the quality of the competition.
Hockley and Seven officials tried to paper over the cracks in the relationship at Tuesday's press conference.
"There's no doubt our relationship has been tested, and there's nothing left unsaid," Seven Melbourne's managing director Lewis Martin said.
"We haven't trashed cricket. We've had our issues with Cricket Australia, and we've reset.
"There were challenging times, there's no doubt about it, but our ... love for cricket (helped us get past it)."
Hockley said his organisation had also moved on.
"I've said previously that some of those comments were disappointing, but we've moved on beyond that," he said.
"Today draws an end to all of that and we're moving forward. We've reached a relationship and all of those legal proceedings have been put to bed."
Hockley said he was comfortable with men's white-ball internationals remaining behind a paywall, confident it was not a major factor in lower crowds against England in November.
