The ICC has strengthened its media rights coverage in Sri Lanka by confirming Dialog Television as its exclusive broadcast partner through 2028, an agreement that runs alongside separate deals confirming Pakistan Television Corporation and Myco as Pakistan’s broadcast and digital rights holders until 2027. Together, the announcements mark a broader recalibration of how the ICC is distributing rights to its global events across South Asia, a region that generates a disproportionate share of the sport’s television and digital audience.
What the Sri Lanka Deal Covers
Under the arrangement, Dialog Television will provide comprehensive coverage of ICC events across the island through 2028, delivering live telecasts on linear television alongside digital coverage via the ThePapare.com website and the Dialog Play mobile app. The multi-year term gives Sri Lankan cricket fans certainty over where major ICC tournaments will be available well beyond the current event cycle, and gives Dialog a runway to build out its digital offering in step with the ICC’s broader push toward mobile-first viewing in South Asian markets.
Pakistan’s Parallel Arrangement
Running alongside the Sri Lankan deal, PTVC and Myco have secured broadcast and digital rights for all ICC events in Pakistan through 2027, an arrangement that keeps the state broadcaster at the center of the country’s cricket viewing experience even as commercial digital platforms increasingly compete for attention. The staggered end dates, 2027 for Pakistan and 2028 for Sri Lanka, mean the two deals will not expire simultaneously, giving the ICC flexibility to negotiate the next cycle of rights in each market on its own timeline rather than bundling both into a single renegotiation.
Why the ICC Is Moving Market by Market
The staggered approach reflects a deliberate ICC strategy of tendering media rights by individual market rather than as a single regional package, a shift that followed the release of formal invitations to tender for Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka rights specifically. According to Sportcal’s coverage of the ICC’s tendering process, breaking rights into smaller national packages allows the governing body to tailor deals to each market’s specific broadcast landscape, digital penetration and advertiser base, rather than accepting a one-size-fits-all valuation that might undervalue rights in a fast-growing digital market like Sri Lanka.
The Bigger Picture: T20 World Cup 2026 Broadcast Reach
These bilateral market deals sit alongside the ICC’s broader broadcast rollout for global events, including this year’s Men’s T20 World Cup, co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka from February 7 to March 8, which JioStar carried in India across Star Sports linear television and the JioHotstar digital platform in five languages, with additional regional-language feeds also available. In the United States, Willow TV and ESPN+ held rights, while Foxtel and Kayo Sports covered the tournament in Australia, illustrating how the ICC now manages a patchwork of market-specific broadcast and digital partners rather than a small number of global rights holders.
A Critical Perspective on Fragmentation
Not everyone views the market-by-market tendering strategy favourably. Some media analysts have argued that breaking rights into smaller national packages, while potentially maximising short-term revenue in each market, risks complicating the ICC’s ability to guarantee consistent global production standards and coordinated promotional campaigns across territories. Others counter that local broadcasters, with existing relationships and infrastructure in their home markets, are better placed to grow audiences than a single global rights holder attempting to serve dramatically different markets with a uniform approach.
What’s Next for Fans and Broadcasters
With the Sri Lanka and Pakistan deals now locked in through 2028 and 2027 respectively, attention turns to how the ICC handles the Bangladesh tender referenced in the same wave of invitations to tender, and to how these staggered national deals will shape negotiations for the next major ICC events on the calendar. For fans in both markets, the practical upshot is straightforward: continuity of access to ICC events on familiar platforms, even as the underlying commercial architecture behind those broadcasts continues to shift market by market. Industry analysts expect the Bangladesh tender, once concluded, to follow a similar structural template, favouring an established broadcaster with existing digital infrastructure over a purely linear-television incumbent, given the ICC’s stated priority of growing mobile viewership across South Asia. For sponsors and advertisers, the multi-year certainty offered by both the Sri Lankan and Pakistani deals should also simplify long-range campaign planning around ICC events, removing at least some of the uncertainty that has periodically accompanied rights renewals in the region in past cycles.