Sky Sports Secures Caribbean Cricket Deal
Sky Sports will show England’s next four tours to the West Indies as part of a new eight year deal with West Indies cricket. The agreement includes every major Test playing nation live from the Caribbean and features all Test, One-Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals played in the region until 2020.
England’s next tour of the West Indies in 2014 will be the first of four tours including the series in 2015, 2017 and 2019. In total the deal, with Taj TV, features seventeen series from the West Indies beginning in March 2013, when Zimbabwe visit in a tour featuring two Tests, three One-Day Internationals and two Twenty20 matches.
Barney Francis, managing director of Sky Sports, said: ‘Sky’s first televised cricket was from the West Indies in 1990 and this deal further shows our commitment to overseas cricket by providing four more live England cricket tours from the Caribbean. It is the latest in a series of agreements that reinforces our position as the home of televised sport.’
He continued: ‘As recent ICC World Twenty20 champions, West Indies are always exciting to watch and very popular with our viewers. This adds more depth to our live scheduling and means Sky Sports has never offered greater depth and breadth of coverage nor a stronger line up of live sport for our viewers to watch at home or on the move.’
The agreement continues a series of rights deals for Sky Sports, with 19 deals over the last 20 months, including six long term cricket deals.
