BackIn a first, Caribbean Premier League to broadcast matches using Facebook Live
The Caribbean Premier League announces that all 34 matches of the ongoing T20 tournament will be broadcast on Facebook Live across 40 countries, including India
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In the first-of-its-kind broadcasting deal, the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) will now be showing its matches live on Facebook, using the company’s popular product feature—Facebook Live. The cricket league announced on Thursday that all 34 matches of the ongoing Twenty20 tournament will be broadcast on Facebook Live across 40 countries, including India.
“CPL will become the first sports league to supplement its existing broadcast deals and use the Facebook Live platform to ensure that 40 countries around the world, including the likes of Pakistan, South Africa and The Philippines, can now view the biggest party in sport live," the CPL said in a statement.
The deal also means that it will be the first time ever that an international cricket match has been broadcast using Facebook Live.
The statement also quoted CPL chief operations officer Pete Russel as saying, “We are delighted to announce how we believe has the potential to change the face of cricket broadcasting and enhance the CPL’s ever-increasing international audience."
In 2015, Russel said, the CPL’s global viewership exceeded 93 million. “We now have the platform to boost our viewership even further for the forthcoming tournament." He added, “On Wednesday night the CPL will make television history and in doing so extend our reach to both traditional and non-traditional cricket followers across the world. We are hugely excited about this development and look forward to engaging more followers internationally."
“Facebook Live allows fans to connect to cricket and their favourite stars and we are delighted to be working with the Hero Caribbean Premier League and Grabyo for this cricketing first and to help bring fans around the world closer to the game," Asha Thaker of Facebook India was quoted as saying. “As the world’s largest sports stadium, more cricket fans engage with content on Facebook than anywhere else and it is unique experiences such as this that allow fans to engage in a more meaningful way."
The live broadcast of CPL matches on Facebook will be done through Grabyo, a company Facebook announced as its official live streaming partner at F8, its annual developers’ conference in April. “On the pitch, T20 cricket is helping to globalize and expand the sport of cricket, bringing a new generation of fans into the game. The use of social video, particularly live streaming, presents an opportunity to reach an unparalleled audience far beyond the traditional broadcast ecosystem," said Gareth Capon, chief executive officer, Grabyo. “Facebook offers a user base of 1.6 billion and to be able to bring live action from the best cricketing talent direct to mobile devices around the world, right as the action happens, is incredibly exciting."
The six-team league, which began on Wednesday, also features a host of present and retired internationals, including Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Kumar Sangakkara, Dale Steyn, Dwayne Bravo, Keiron Pollard and Brendon McCullum, among others. Two of the league’s franchises, the Trinbago Knight Riders and the Barbados Tridents, are owned by Indians. While Shah Rukh Khan owns the TKR, exiled businessman Vijay Mallya owns the Tridents.
Earlier this year, American women’s footballer Alex Morgan created history by broadcasting the National Women’s Soccer League opener between Orlando Pride and Houston Dash live on her Facebook page, making it the first-ever game to be officially broadcast on the platform. Morgan broadcasted the game in its entirety. A BuzzFeed report said that Morgan’s broadcast “reached an estimated 554,000 unique viewers in all".
However, Facebook won’t be the first social networking platform to get into sports broadcasting. In April, Twitter signed a broadcast deal with the National Football League to stream 10 Thursday night games during the 2016 season. According to reports, Amazon and Verizon were also in contention to secure the deal, believed to be worth $10 million. In 2010, Google-owned YouTube signed its first major sports broadcasting deal with the Indian Premier League. It was highly successful, bringing in “more than 55m visits from 250 countries," according to a report in The Guardian.
More recently, BT Sport, the official rights-holders for the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, announced that it would broadcast the two games live on YouTube. In May, YouTube also signed a deal with Spain’s Liga de Fútbol Profesional to broadcast the LFP World Challenge, a pre-season tour featuring La Liga clubs Real Sociedad, RCD Espanyol and SD Eibar.
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