Viacom18 Media bagged the media rights to broadcast India’s home international matches for the 2023-28 cycle from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Thursday, August 31. Reliance-backed electronic giants won both digital and TV broadcast rights to stream team India’s matches for the next five years.
JioCinema will live stream all the matches online while Sports18 will broadcast on television. Star Sports Network, previous official broadcasters, will broadcast next month’s Australia series and the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 in October-November. According to a report from Cricbuzz, Viacom18 will be paying INR 67.8 crore per game (for both digital and TV) to broadcast India’s home international matches for the next five years.
India men’s cricket team is set to play 88 international matches at home till March 2028 and Viacom18 will pay BCCI overall INR 5966.4 crore for a five-year deal. Star Sports Network had paid INR 6130.10 crore to win BCCI media rights in 2018 for 103 international matches and also holds rights to broadcast ICC matches till 2027. Earlier Viacom18 also beat Star Sports to bag digital rights to stream IPL and WPL matches for five years.
The BCCI Secretary Jay Shah congratulated Viacom18 for winning the BCCI Media Rights and also thanked the former broadcasters Star Sports Network for their contribution in the previous cycle.“Congratulations Viacom18f or winning the BCCI Media Rights for both linear and digital for the next 5 years,” Jay Shah announced via a Tweet on Thursday. “India Cricket will continue to grow in both spaces as after IPL, and WPL, we extend the partnership BCCI Media Rights as well. Together we will continue to capture the imagination of Indian cricket fans. Also, a big thank you to Star India DisneyPlus HotStar for your support over the years. You played a key role in making India Cricket reach its fans across the globe.”