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By Torrey Hart
Amazon Prime Video has acquired the broadcasting rights to New Zealand Cricket matches in India, its first live sports rights in the country, CNBC reported on Nov. 10.
The deal will exclusively cover the streaming of all men’s and women’s international cricket matches played in New Zealand beginning in late 2021 and running through the 2025-26 season.
“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 … and the cricketing rivalry between the two countries has been fantastic,” India head of Prime Video Gaurav Gandhi said in a statement.
New Zealand Cricket already has a six-year domestic streaming deal with Spark Sport that starts in late November 2020.
Amazon has pushed in recent years to stream live sports globally. Its other sports rights include “Thursday Night Football” for the NFL, the Premier League, the ATP Tour, and tennis’ U.S. Open. The e-commerce giant was previously said to be interested in airing India’s Premier League cricket, according to CNBC, but Walt Disney-owned Star India ended up with the global media rights — beating out Facebook’s $600 million bid.
In October, MLB also bet on Indian audiences, striking a deal with Star Sports India to broadcast more World Series and regular season games as well as new original content in the country.
