The BBC, the UK's pubic-service broadcaster, has extended its multi-faceted coverage deal with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) governing body, through 2028, although live TV coverage of international cricket has been removed from the tie-up.
Through an extension unveiled today, the BBC will continue to provide live, free-to-air (FTA) coverage of The Hundred, the short-format, eight-team, domestic franchise tournament, for the 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028 seasons, while highlights of England men's and women's internationals will also be aired.
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In addition, the deal – which gets underway for the first England fixture of the season, a women's game against West Indies on May 21 – includes digital clips rights for home national team fixtures.
However, while the previous BBC-ECB deal – which ran across the 2020-24 cycle – carried a package of live international cricket rights (the first time the BBC had shown live cricket since 1999), this element has not been extended.
Indeed, the ECB has said it will unveil terrestrial TV arrangements for two England men's and two England women's Twenty20 fixtures (per year) "in due course."
In terms of potential other options for FTA coverage of England home international fixtures, commercial broadcaster Channel 4 covered the men's test tour of India in 2021, while Channel 5 provided highlights coverage during a large part of the 2000s and 2010s.
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By GlobalDataThe vast majority of live England men's and women's home international cricket over the last cycle was aired domestically by pay-TV heavyweight Sky, but those four aforementioned Twenty20's formed a FTA carve-out for the BBC. The current Sky-ECB tie-up also covers the 2025-28 cycle and was unveiled in mid-2022.
The element of this deal covering The Hundred, meanwhile, entails the BBC continuing to air eight double-header fixtures (16 games in total) live, each season, including the opening matches and the finals of both the men's and women's tournaments.
The overall agreement comes on top of the audio rights deal the BBC has in place with the ECB, covering all England men's and women's home tests, one-day-internationals, and Twenty20's, as well as various domestic county fixtures. That tie-up was unveiled in June 2023.
Tony Singh, chief commercial officer at the ECB, said: "With our shared passion for growing women’s sport, it’s exciting that the BBC will be showing even more live women’s games in The Hundred each year, while viewers will continue to have free access to highlights of England men’s and women’s home matches during what promises to be an exciting period for cricket in this country.”
Between them, England's men's and women's teams play home series' against the West Indies, India, and South Africa, as well as the one-off Zimbabwe test, this season.
Late last month, the ECB unveiled KP Snacks as the sleeve sponsor of the respective England national teams.
