Amazon Prime Video has secured a four-year deal with the International Cricket Council (ICC) for exclusive live broadcast rights of ICC cricket. The deal, which spans from 2024 to 2027, will cover 448 live games, including the Men’s and Women’s Cricket World Cups, T20 World Cups, Champions Trophy, U19s, and the World Test Championship Final.

All matches will be available to Prime members in Australia at no additional cost to their membership. This move follows the success of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, which set new records for in-stadium attendance, broadcast viewership, and digital engagement.

ICC Chief Executive, Geoff Allardice, expressed his excitement about the partnership. 'We are very excited to be entering a new four-year partnership with Prime Video for ICC cricket rights in Australia,' he said. 'The recently concluded Men’s Cricket World Cup has highlighted the interest and passion for ICC Events across the globe, and especially in Australia where cricket fans have enjoyed the recent success of their men’s and women’s teams. We look forward to working with Prime Video Australia to provide an innovative coverage of world-class cricket to more fans in Australia.'

Hushidar Kharas, Head of Prime Video Australia and New Zealand, echoed Allardice's enthusiasm. 'Prime Video has worked to create a single destination for audiences to find new movies, live sports, and their favourite TV shows. We are always looking for ways to deliver more value to our customers and live sports is consistently one of their top requests,' Kharas said. 'We are thrilled to be able to offer our customers the live broadcast of the Cricket World Cup included in their Prime membership! The Cricket World Cup is one of the most viewed sporting events in the world; the recently concluded edition was watched by hundreds of millions of people! Over the next four years, Prime members in Australia will be able to watch their favourite cricket teams and players compete for the game’s biggest prize, on demand, on the device of their choice—exclusively on Prime Video.'

As we reported earlier this year, Amazon Prime is the latest subscription streaming service to spurn a no ads policy, and has briefed key media buying groups on plans for the June 2024 launch of an Australian ad tier with three-month launch packages of $150,000-$250,000 to 5 million members. The high subscriber figure surprised some but comes as Australia’s biggest ad buying consortium, Omnicom Media Group, forecasts subscription streaming services would strip $75-$100m in ad revenues from free-to-air TV next year.