Bureau Report
Lahore: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has signed a three-year broadcast deal with Pakistan Television (PTV) Sports.
The deal will see PTV Sports broadcast all Pakistan’s home bilateral series as well as all domestic cricket. PCB expects to earn in excess of US$200 million over the three-year term from this ‘Game Changer’ deal. PCB also signed an agreement with a private communication service to provide cable distribution.
According to a press release issued by the PCB, the broadcast agreement is for Pakistan only while they will be soon finalizing the grant of its broadcast rights for international territories separately as well as launching a new structure for its digital media rights.
“Under the arrangement, all Pakistan International Home Series of the Senior Cricket Team and the Women’s and Junior cricket teams will be broadcast live on PTV Sports. Also for the first time all the major Domestic tournaments, including the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, the National T-20 Cup, the One Day Pakistan Cup and the National U-19 One-Day and National U-19 Three Day tournaments, will be broadcast live on PTV Sports and distributed across Pakistan on cable networks,” PCB said in a statement
“The supporting cable distribution agreement, unlike in the past, seeks to ensure that the broadcast content of PCB cricket is not redistributed without proper authorization which was one of the reasons for greatly diminishing the value of PCB content,” it added.
PCB will produce the matches directly to meet the highest international standards and will not be bulked as part of the broadcasting deal as was done in the past.
The PCB will invest Rs 15 billion on the promotion of national men’s and women’s cricket in the next three years, which will also be spent on creating jobs for former cricketers in high-performance centers.
Chairman PCB Ehsan Mani was instrumental in finalizing the three-year broadcast agreement. Ehsan Mani has been working on this deal for the last 4 months. Ehsan Mani previously had a reputation for making lucrative broadcast deals with the ICC and the PCB. Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, Chairman PCB Ehsan Mani, CEO Wasim Khan, National men’s team head coach Misbah-ul-Haq, Test skipper Azhar Ali, former captain Wasim Akram, all-rounder Mohammad Hafeez was also present in the ceremony.
