Amazon Prime Video has taken a leaf out of Disney Plus Hotstar’s most successful key to racking up subscribers. It has forayed into the world of live streaming cricket matches, a plan which is bound to be a surefire hit for the streaming service, given the crazy popularity of the game in the Indian subcontinent. Amazon Prime Video has signed a multi-year deal with the New Zealand Cricket board (NZC), under which, all international cricket matches played within New Zealand will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
The deal signed between Amazon Prime Video and the New Zealand Cricket Board will be effective from late 2021 and will be valid until 2025-26. It will apply to both men’s and women’s cricket, and include all forms of the sport – One Days (ODI), Tests and Twenty-Twenty (T20) cricket.
India is due to tour New Zealand in 2022 for a series of tests, ODIs and T20 matches. There’s also another tour in the offing, the dates of which haven’t been disclosed yet.
Gaurav Gandhi, director & country general manager, Amazon Prime Video, shared with the media, “We are excited to add India’s most loved game—Cricket—to our content selection for our Prime Video customers, and we are thrilled to work with New Zealand Cricket on this endeavour as they have a strong, passionate and much-loved cricket team, and the cricketing rivalry between the two countries has been fantastic. We are happy to make this collaboration with New Zealand Cricket our first live sport offering in India, and are confident that our Prime members will be delighted with this initiative.”
Amazon Prime Video already live-streams a slate of sporting tourneys in the fields of football, tennis and rugby. By adding cricket to its roster, it has made a strategic move to up its presence in the promising domain of live-streaming sports in India. Live-streaming sporting events on OTT platforms is projected to be the future of live sports.
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