The social media firm Facebook has bagged the partnership of exclusive digital content rights for all the International Cricket Council (ICC) events in the Indian sub-continent until 2023.
Facebook will be having a wide range of digital content which includes post-match recaps, in-play key moments, and other featured content for four years, from 2019 to 2023.
The agreement includes 12 key ICC tournaments, including the T20 World Cup 2020, World Cup 2021, World Test Championship, T20 World Cup qualifier events, and the Under-19 cricket World Cup scheduled to be held in 2020 and 2022.
“We are delighted to welcome Facebook to the global cricket family for this multi-year, multi-market partnership, which is a first for our sport. Throughout the competitive bidding process, we received tremendous interest from a range of platforms, all of whom recognize the phenomenal reach of cricket. In Facebook, we have a genuine partner who shares in our ambition to continue to grow and deepen engagement with cricket fans globally using its platforms,” – ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney said.
ICC claimed it has received more than 4.6 billion views on video content with World Cup 2019 videos across its digital and social media platforms. On Facebook alone, there were more than 1.2 billion minutes of content watched over 10 billion impressions and more than 68 million engagements.
“With Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, ICC has an exceptional opportunity to leverage our family of apps to serve current sports fans, as well as bring in an entirely new generation of fans. The future of augmented reality and virtual reality is being charted by Facebook, and we are excited about the possibility of bringing the best of our innovations to fans around the world,” – vice-president and managing director Ajit Mohan said.
