ANTIGUA: ESPN has signed a five-year deal with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) that gives Disney’s sportscaster exclusive rights to show all England’s international and domestic matches in the Caribbean on television and digital platforms until 2022.
As per the contract, ESPN will broadcast live matches starting from England’s Test series against Pakistan. Some of the marquee events that it will cover would be India’s tour of England later in the summer, ICC World Cup 2019,Ashes 2019 and ‘The Hundred’ which is scheduled to take place in 2020.
Scott McGlone, ESPN International’s Director of Programming, said: “We are pleased to announce our first ever agreement with ECB in the Caribbean. ESPN is committed to bringing the very best cricket action to fans in the West Indies and what better way to demonstrate this than our alliance with the ECB, which represents both the storied history of the game and its bright future of growth across all formats. This agreement reinforces our commitment to providing fans in the region with high quality and locally relevant programming.”
ECB’s chief commercial officer Sanjay Patel said: “Today’s (Wednesday) announcement is good news for Caribbean cricket fans. It means they can enjoy all the action from our domestic and international playing programme across a variety of different platforms – and will help give our national men’s and women’s teams, and our county teams an even greater global profile.”
