Facebook secures exclusive digital rights for ICC cricket events

If you’re a cricket fan, you will be visiting Facebook way more often in the coming months and years. The social juggernaut announced on Thursday it has partnered with the International Cricket Council (ICC), the global governing body of cricket, to secure exclusive digital rights until 2023 for global ICC events in the Indian sub-continent.

As part of the four-year deal, financial details of which were not disclosed, Facebook will also show post-match recaps, in-play key moments of the matches in the rest of the world. Facebook said it hopes to serve “hundreds of millions of cricket fans” through this “unprecedented” and “ground-breaking” deal.

In a statement, Ajit Mohan, VP and Managing Director Facebook India, said, “with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, the 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. Every day, people come to our platforms to talk about, and form friendships around, cricket. With this partnership, we will be able to serve these fans with the kind of premium content that can ignite new conversations, new connections and new followership.”

He added, “the future of AR and VR is being charted by Facebook and we are excited about the possibility of bringing the best of our innovations to fans around the world.”

This is a developing story…

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2nrqEY7