A surprising thing happened a few days ago as the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced that Amazon Prime Video was the new four-year exclusive Australian broadcast partner who will livestream men’s and women’s ICC cricket events in Australia.
The partnership will see Prime Video Australia exclusively stream all men’s and women’s events, including the Men’s and Women’s Cricket World Cups, T20 World Cups, Champions Trophy, U19’s and the World Test Championship Final. The deal includes streaming rights in Australia for 448 live games from 2024 to 2027.
ICC events Amazon Prime Video Australia now holds rights to:
- Men’s T20 World Cup: USA/West Indies (June/July 2024)
- Women’s T20 World Cup: Bangladesh (September/October 2024)
- Men’s Champions Trophy: Pakistan (February/March 2025)
- World Test Championship final: England (June 2025)
- Women’s ODI World Cup: India (September/October 2025)
- Men’s T20 World Cup: India/Sri Lanka (September/October 2026)
- Women’s T20 World Cup: England (June 2026)
- Women’s Champions Trophy: Sri Lanka (February 2027)
- World Test Championship final (mid-2027)
- Men’s ODI World Cup: South Africa/Namibia (October/November 2027)
The deal also includes all ICC Qualifier and U19 World Cup events such as the January 2024 Men’s U19 Cricket World Cup in South Africa.
Here’s what this means for cricket fans, including what matches you can watch, and how to watch them.
It means there will be no free-to-air or Foxtel/Kayo Australian broadcast of any men’s or women’s ICC events (Men’s and Women’s Cricket World Cups, T20 World Cups, Champions Trophy, U19s and the World Test Championship Final) under the deal.
When I was a kid cricket coverage in Australia was all on one free to air network Channel 9.
Now it is scattered across Free to Air Channels 7 and 9, Foxtel, Kayo, Amazon Prime Video, the Cricket Australia app and cricket.com.au.
This new partnership between the ICC and Amazon begins in January 2024, will give Amazon Prime member cricket fans across Australia exclusive access to all matches in every tournament of elite ICC competition in all cricket formats, at no extra cost.
Prime members will be able to watch all live ICC matches anywhere and anytime on their Prime Video app for smart TVs, mobile devices, Fire TV, Fire TV stick, Fire tablets, and Apple TV or stream them online.
In the Prime Video app, Prime members will be able to download matches on their mobile devices and tablets and watch them anywhere offline at no additional cost.
The deal follows the success of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, which broke a number of records, culminating in Australia lifting the trophy.
The biggest Cricket World Cup ever set new records for in-stadium attendance and broadcast viewership, whilst becoming the most digitally engaged event to date, showcasing that the appetite and demand for World Cup cricket is bigger than ever.
Hushidar Kharas, head of Prime Video Australia and New Zealand commented about the deal:
“Prime Video has worked to create a single destination for audiences to find new movies, live sports, and their favourite TV showS”.
“We are always looking for ways to deliver more value to our customers and live sports is consistently one of their top requests. We are thrilled to be able to offer our customers the live broadcast of the Cricket World Cup included in their Prime membership”.
“The Cricket World Cup is one of the most-viewed sporting events in the world; the recently concluded edition was watched by millions of people. Over the next four years, Prime members in Australia will be able to watch their favourite cricket teams and players compete for the game’s biggest prize, on demand, on the device of their choice—exclusively on Prime Video.””
