Sky Sports has fought off competition from BT Sport to secure the rights to show international cricket’s biggest events, including the ICC Cricket World Cup, ICC World Twenty20 and ICC Champions Trophy.
The agreement means Sky Sports subscribers will be able to continue watching exclusive live coverage of 14 International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments between 2015 and 2023, offering over 250 days of live cricket throughout the entire nine-year deal.
Asian TV network STAR has been awarded the global rights by the ICC, in a deal understood to be worth a record-breaking $2.5 billion, from which it can sell off to broadcasters in all territories around the world.
Sky Sports will continue its exclusive arrangement with STAR for broadcast of ICC competitions in UK and Ireland, continuing its virtual monopoly of live televised cricket into the next decade.
The broadcaster’s previous agreement for ICC cricket events concludes after the 2015 Cricket World Cup, which will be staged in Australia and New Zealand in February/March.
BSkyB’s new deal with the ICC is the 24th rights agreement it has secured in 2014 alone and includes three tournaments taking place in England and Wales – the Champions Trophy and Women’s World Cup in 2017, followed by the Cricket World Cup, regarded as the most prestigious prize in one-day international cricket, in the summer of 2019.
The deal further strengthens Sky Sports’ live cricket portfolio, which offers an unprecedented choice of international and domestic coverage from around the world, including England’s home Tests, One-Day Internationals and Twenty20 matches, featuring next summer’s Ashes series, as well as action from Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies.
Also, for the first time from 2015, Sky Sports will screen live IPL matches, after outbidding previous broadcaster ITV for the rights, meaning only viewers with Sky Sports will be able to watch the world’s top four domestic Twenty20 cricket competitions from India, England, Australia and South Africa.
It is believed that BT Sport made a serious bid to challenge Sky for the ICC rights as the battle between the two pay-TV broadcasters for televised sport’s biggest properties continues across a variety of sports, with BT’s only live cricket rights so far being its two-year deal to cover the Caribbean Premier League T20 competition.
The new ICC deal does affect the ECB’s current multi-million pound broadcast deal with Sky Sports to show international and domestic cricket in England, which runs through to at least 2017, with negotiations on a new TV deal due to start in the new year.
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The following ICC rights have been awarded to Sky Sports:
CRICKET WORLD CUP: Live coverage of the next two tournaments and qualifiers; from England and Wales in May 2019 and India in February 2023.
WORLD TWENTY20: Live coverage of the next two competitions; from India in March 2016 and Australia in October 2020.
CHAMPIONS TROPHY: Live coverage of the One-Day International tournament to be held in England and Wales in June 2017 and India in October 2021.
WOMEN’S WORLD CUP: Live coverage of the next two Women’s World Cups, to be held in England and Wales in August 2017 and New Zealand in November 2021.
WOMEN’S WORLD TWENTY20: Live coverage of the next two Women’s World Twenty20 competitions; to be held in the West Indies in November 2018 and South Africa in October 2022.
UNDER-19 WORLD CUP: Live coverage of the next four events; from Bangladesh in January 2016, New Zealand in January 2018, South Africa in January 2020 and the West Indies in January 2022.
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Commenting on BSkyB’s new deal for ICC cricket rights, Barney Francis, managing director of Sky Sports, said: “We’re delighted to be awarded the ICC rights and strengthen Sky Sports’ unrivalled commitment to cricket even further.
“Our cricket schedule keeps getting stronger and by adding events such as the World Cup, World Twenty20 and Champions Trophy, we’ve never offered our viewers such choice from all formats of the game.”
Sky Sports secured the long-term rights package to ICC events from Asian-based broadcaster STA in a deal, rumoured to be in the region of $2.5m, which is the biggest in the governing body’s history and outstrips the $1.1 billion STAR paid for the previous 2007-2015 deal.
The money from the new rights deal will be split among the ICC members nations, though under the new revenue share model pushed through this year by the BCCI, Cricket Australia and the ECB, those three nations will receive a larger slice.
Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman who played a key part in the negotiations for the global ICC TV rights, in his role as head of the ICC’s financial and commercial affairs committee, said: “This innovative and exciting partnership will underpin the long-term financial health of the global game and provide real stability for all our members.
“It will help the ICC and our members to grow participation in areas such as the women’s game where there have been great strides made as well as supporting the emerging nations.
“This is a momentous day for world cricket which highlights the great commercial attractiveness of our sport and the ever increasing levels of interest in our outstanding world-class events.
“The partnership will also guarantee increased promotion and marketing of the game in key markets across the globe.”
There is no indication as yet on whether the ICC will award a highlights package for its tournaments to free-to-air broadcasters, though the BBC screened daily highlights of the 2007 and 2011 Cricket World Cups after negotiating one-off deals prior to each event.
The ICC Cricket World Cup is on the category B list of Ofcom’s code of listed sporting events, which stipulates that sufficient free-to-air highlights must be offered for matches featuring the home nations, as well as the semi-finals and final.
Following ITV’s loss of IPL rights to Sky Sports, the only cricket available to audiences without a subscription package will be Channel 5’s highlights of England’s home internationals. The England team has not been shown live on free-to-air television in the UK since the 2005 Ashes series, which was covered by Channel 4.
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