LONDON: Sky Sports has signed a new multi-year agreement to broadcast the Indian Premier League.
In 2014, the 21st Century Fox affiliate (21CF has a 39 per cent stake in Sky plc) had signed a three-year deal to broadcast the IPL for the first time in UK and Ireland.
Under the renewed deal, Sky Sports will broadcast 60 live IPL matches each year in the UK and Ireland starting with the 2018 tournament, which begins on April 7. It also includes digital rights.
The operative point here is the digital rights. The fact that Sky has taken said rights puts a question mark on reports that Star India, which holds the global media rights to world cricket’s most valuable annual property, would leverage the IPL to the fullest as its OTT platform Hotstar bids to make inroads in the UK market.
