Facebook has signed a four-year ground-breaking partnership with the International Cricket Council, which makes it the exclusive digital content rights partner for the ICC global events in the Indian subcontinent. The social media giant will also be carrying post-match recaps throughout the rest of the world for four years, according to the media release issued by ICC.
As a part of its four years deal, Facebook will be carrying a range of digital content including match recaps, in-play key moments and other match and feature content, which will give millions of cricket fans in the area, the opportunity to strengthen their engagement with the sport with loads of content available.
Future of AR and VR in cricket
In a statement, Ajit Mohan, VP & Managing Director Facebook India, said that they were excited to partner with ICC to bring the most thrilling moments in cricket to Facebook Watch and to map the next stage of tech-led transformation in cricket.
He added that with the use of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, the cricket council has an exceptional opportunity to take advantage from the social media apps to serve the present sports fans as well as bring in a whole new generation of fans. With the partnership, the platforms will be able to serve such fans with premium content that can spark further discussions, new connections, and new followership. Facebook is charting the future of AR and VR, and he added that they were excited about the possibility of bringing their best innovations to fans around the world.
ICC said in a statement last month that around 2.3 billion minutes of Cricket World Cup content was seen on the official YouTube channel of ICC, while the content was viewed more than 1.2 billion minutes on Facebook, with 10 billion impressions and more than 68 million interactions.
Facebook has beyond 300 million users in India alone. The company had previously bid unsuccessfully for the streaming rights of the IPL cricket tournament in 2017. Recently, the ICC Men’s Cricket Tournament reaped 4.6 billion views across ICC’s digital and social platforms.
ICC Global event cycle 2019-23
The agreement includes these events in the 2019-23 period- ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020, ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2020, ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021, ICC World Test Championship Final 2021, ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021, ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2022, ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, ICC World Test Championship Final 2023, ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019, ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2022, ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2020, ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2022
