United Kingdom free-to-air broadcaster FreeSports has expanded its cricket offering for the next two years, acquiring exclusive media rights to the home Tests, ODIs and T20Is of Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.
The two-year deal runs from March 2021 to early 2023 and was agreed with the RDA agency, which sold the rights on behalf of both the Afghanistan Cricket Board and Zimbabwe Cricket.
FreeSports will begin its coverage with the first of two Test matches between Afghanistan and Zimbabwe yesterday (Tuesday). It will be the first-ever Test match shown on UK free-to-air television that doesn’t involve the England cricket team.
The broadcaster said it will show every Afghanistan and Zimbabwe home Test, ODI and T20I until the end of the 2022-23 season, amounting to a total of 91 matches.
Highlights include a T20I tri-series between Afghanistan, Australia and the West Indies in October this year, as well as a three-ODI series between Afghanistan and Australia in February 2022.
Afghanistan will mainly play limited-overs cricket, playing a total of four Tests against Zimbabwe over the course of the deal. Zimbabwe will play a total of nine Tests from March 2021 to January 2023, including a Test series against Pakistan in April this year.
Richard Sweeney, chief executive of FreeSports and its sister pay-television broadcaster Premier Sports, said: “We have consistently broadcast some of the best cricket tournaments from around the world and it is always well received by our viewers who are always asking for more! We’re thrilled to have struck this deal with RDA and committed to our long term vision of bringing live and free sport to every home in the UK.”
The deal marks the first time FreeSports has acquired rights to Test cricket, having previously only bought rights to short-form competitions. It recently showed the 2021 Abu Dhabi T10 in January and the CSA T20 Challenge in February.
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UK free-to-air coverage of cricket has come under the spotlight since Channel 4 recently completed a deal for free-to-air rights to England’s ongoing tour of India, bringing live Test cricket to UK free-to-air television for the first time since 2005.— sportbusiness
