JioCinema and FanCode to broadcast India-West Indies cricket series

Over-the-top streaming service JioCinema, owned by Viacom18, has announced the acquisition of digital rights to India-West Indies cricket series and will live-stream two test matches, three ODIs and five T20Is.

Multi-sport aggregator Fancode, too, has a sub-licensing deal for the tournament and will also broadcast the series. Dream Sports, the parent company of fantasy gaming platform Dream11, owns and operates FanCode in India.

India’s tour of West Indies will begin July 12 with the first test match in Dominica followed by the second in Trinidad. The test series will mark the beginning of India’s World Test Championship 2023-25 cycle.

The three-match ODI series will start 27 July and will be played in Barbados and Trinidad. The five-match T20I competition will kick off in Trinidad on 3 August, followed by two matches in Guyana and the last two fixtures in Florida, US.

This series will be available in seven languages. Viacom18 is majority owned by Reliance Industries.

Its sports head of strategy, partnership and acquisitions, Hursh Shrivastava said, “With the India Tour of West Indies 2023, we will forge ahead and offer our viewers a world-class presentation.”

On the platform, the recently concluded Indian Premier League, it claimed, had a 3.21 crore peak concurrency, and said it had about 1700 crore video views through the 16th edition. However, total video views do not constitute total viewers but are an addition of all the sessions made by all users. It said it had 2.5 crore downloads of its app during the season.

The size of the Indian sports industry was estimated to have surpassed ₹9,500 crore in 2021, according to a report by GroupM ESP. The year 2021 also saw a comeback for sports sponsorships and media deals after the pandemic lull. Live Mint