The International Cricket Council (ICC) and Amazon’s Prime Video Monday announced a four-year deal to provide exclusive live broadcast rights in Australia for ICC cricket, which will be available on Prime Video Australia.
The partnership will see Prime Video Australia exclusively stream all men’s and women’s events, including the Men’s and Women’s Cricket World Cups, T20 World Cups, Champions Trophy, U19s and the World Test Championship Final. The deal includes streaming rights in Australia for 448 live games from 2024 to 2027.
Under the deal, there will be no free-to-air Australian broadcast of any men’s or women’s ICC events.
The new partnership, which begins in January 2024, will give cricket fans across Australia exclusive access to all matches in every tournament of elite ICC competition in all cricket formats, at no extra cost to a Prime membership.
It brings to an end the 15-year joint-venture for ICC events between Foxtel and Channel Nine, which concluded with Pat Cummins’ men lifting the ODI World Cup in Ahmedabad last month.
An average audience of more than 2.1 million Australians tuned in to the broadcast of the World Cup final, including 1.6m on Nine.
There are no ICC tournaments scheduled to be hosted by Australia in the next four years.
ICC Chief Executive, Geoff Allardice said: “We are very excited to be entering a new four-year partnership with Prime Video for ICC cricket rights in Australia. The recently concluded Men’s Cricket World Cup has highlighted the interest and passion for ICC Events across the globe, and especially in Australia where cricket fans have enjoyed the recent success of their men’s and women’s teams. We look forward to working with Prime Video Australia to provide an innovative coverage of world class cricket to more fans in Australia.”
Head of Prime Video Australia and New Zealand, Hushidar Kharas said: “Prime Video has worked to create a single destination for audiences to find new movies, live sports, and their favorite TV shows. We are always looking for ways to deliver more value to our customers and live sports is consistently one of their top requests. We are thrilled to be able to offer our customers the live broadcast of the Cricket World Cup included in their Prime membership!
“The Cricket World Cup is one of the most viewed sporting events in the world; the recently concluded edition was watched by hundreds of millions of people! Over the next four years, Prime members in Australia will be able to watch their favourite cricket teams and players compete for the game’s biggest prize, on demand, on the device of their choice—exclusively on Prime Video.”
Per Cricket Australia’s official website, the deal, that is understood to have been struck some months ago, comes just days after the Australian government reaffirmed its commitment to anti-siphoning measures for sporting events. Communications minister Michelle Rowland last week introduced laws to parliament updating anti-siphoning measures that would require free-to-air services to be offered first refusal for important sporting events.
Seven has held Cricket Australia’s domestic broadcast rights, in a partnership with Foxtel, since 2018 when the pair joined forces for a $1.182 billion deal that ended a 40-year association between CA and Nine.
The ICC opted to strike direct deals in each market for its new rights cycle. A deal for the Indian market with Disney Star, reported to be worth $3bn for the four-year cycle until the end of 2027, was minted in August last year, while in January the ICC signed an eight-year deal with Sky Sports for the UK rights.
The ICC went to market with its rights in September 2022 inviting broadcasters to bid separately for men’s and women’s events, with television and digital rights packaged together, for either a four-year or eight-year cycle.
Amazon’s Prime Video already holds global broadcast rights for Australian swimming events, and broadcasts New Zealand Cricket’s home internationals in India. It also hosts the two series of The Test documentary charting the Australian cricket team’s progress in 2018-19, and 2021-22.
ICC events Amazon holds rights to:
Men’s T20 World Cup: USA/West Indies (June/July 2024)
Women’s T20 World Cup: Bangladesh (September/October 2024)
Men’s Champions Trophy: Pakistan (February/March 2025)
World Test Championship final: England (June 2025)
Women’s ODI World Cup: India (September/October 2025)
Men’s T20 World Cup: India/Sri Lanka (September/October 2026)
Women’s T20 World Cup: England (June 2026)
Women’s Champions Trophy: Sri Lanka (February 2027)
Men’s ODI World Cup: South Africa/Namibia (October/November 2027)
* Deal also includes all ICC Qualifier and U19 World Cup events
