ICC joins hands with Facebook for digital content till 2023

Dubai: The International Cricket Council announced a new partnership with Facebook on Thursday through which Facebook will become the exclusive digital content rights partner for ICC global events in the Indian sub-continent and will also carry post match recaps throughout the rest of the world through to 2023.

After this partnership, Facebook will carry a range of digital content across four years including match recaps, in-play key moments and other match and feature content, ICC said in a statement. 

ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney said he is delighted to welcome Facebook to the global cricket family for the multi-year, multi-market partnership which is a first for the sport. 

"The combination of one of the world's most watched sports with one of the world's largest platforms is exciting for the future of our game. The record-breaking growth in digital consumption at this summer's ICC Men's Cricket World Cup demonstrated the continued power of cricket to connect and engage more deeply with diverse audiences around the world," he added.

Commenting on the partnership with ICC, Ajit Mohan, VP and managing director Facebook India said the company is excited to chart the next stage of technology led transformation in cricket.

"With Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, the ICC has an exceptional opportunity to leverage our family of apps to serve current sports fans as well as bring in an entirely new generation of fans. Every day, people come to our platforms to talk about, and form friendships around, cricket. With this partnership, we will be able to serve these fans with the kind of premium content that can ignite new conversations, new connections and new followership,'' he added. 

The partnership includes ICC events like the ICC men's Cricket World Cup 2023 and the ICC women's cricket world cup in 2021, the ICC men's T20 World Cup in 2020 and 2021 and ICC women's T20 World Cup in 2020 and 2022, the ICC World Test Championship Final in 2021 and 2023 as well as events like the ICC U19 cricket world cup in 2020 and 2022.(UNI)