ESPN Caribbean Lands England & Wales Cricket Rights

ESPN has reached a five-year deal with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for exclusive multimedia rights to matches for its Caribbean footprint.

Running from 2018 to 2022, the pact includes live coverage of all international and domestic cricket played in England and Wales over the next five summers. It also covers the 2019 Ashes, a 2022 West Indies tour and an India return in 2022. Beginning in 2020, ESPN has also acquired rights to coverage of the England women’s team and men’s county cricket.

Scott McGlone, ESPN International’s director of programming, noted, “We are pleased to announce our first ever agreement with ECB in the Caribbean. ESPN is committed to bringing the very best cricket action to fans in the West Indies and what better way to demonstrate this than our alliance with the ECB, which represents both the storied history of the game and its bright future of growth across all formats. This agreement reinforces our commitment to providing fans in the region with high quality and locally relevant programming.”

Sanjay Patel, ECB’s chief commercial officer, commented, “Today’s announcement is good news for Caribbean cricket fans. It means they can enjoy all the action from our domestic and international playing program across a variety of different platforms—and will help give our national men’s and women’s teams, and our county teams an even greater global profile.”

ESPN Caribbean also has the rights to the 2018 ICC Women’s World T20 (hosted by the West Indies), the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup and Cricket West Indies Super50 Cup.