Following a thorough tender process, ICC awarded Star Sports the global broadcast rights for all the ICC Events spanning between 2015-2023. This included exclusive live and highlights rights across all platforms for ICC major events like the ICC Cricket World Cup and its qualifiers, the ICC Women’s World Cup, the ICC World Twenty20 and its qualifiers, the ICC Champions Trophy and the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup.
Exclusive to sell live cricket events' broadcasts to its syndicates
Star Sports also oversees the syndication and distribution of ICC events to a global audience and Broadcast Partners include;
- OSN (Middle East and North Africa),
- SKY (United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland),
- Willow TV (USA),
- SuperSport (South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa),
- Fox Sports (Australia),
- SKY TV (New Zealand),
- ESPN (Caribbean),
- PTV and Ten Sports (Pakistan),
- Maasranga, GTV & BTV (Bangladesh),
- SLRC (Sri Lanka).
What about the Pakistan Cricket?
Pakistan Cricket is known by its main product which was but not CURRENTLY is domestic cricket structure, instead on the name of domestic structural cricket, we call it as the PSL, otherwise in my books, it was the domestic circuit games off which the bi-product was supposed to be called as the PSL instead it is otherwise in Pakistan.
Otherwise
The matter of fact is we require OUR CRICKET to be known globally just like the old cricketing writers whatever the country they belonged to, know about Pakistan's Wills Cup, because it was MADE as a PRODUCT OF PAKISTAN at that time by our own authorities which was made available to global broadcasters like Star Sports at that time which used to broadcast Pakistan's games and it was an expensive deal at that time, where our management (the cricketing management) used to invest on long-run-goals, which benefitted Pakistan Cricket in longer run.
Media biasness
They call it as media boom, I call it messing it up with Pakistan's name and stature, because since the time Media got HOLD on the decision-making stature's, ruined Pakistan's self respect and stature on global arena, because the official sponsors of the Pakistan Cricket weigh so less, compared to the likes of Bangladesh which post 2000's have invested massively on their domestic cricket, which not only includes renovation of already built structures but also building newer venues which if we compare it with the regional venues, are at par.
Because of this media biasness, we have definitely lowered our standard and quality of players standards we used to have, because even if we compare Abdul Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood with today's lot of the all-rounders, the difference can easily be experienced, where we could have had expected from Azhar Mahmood in Durban to won a game for us in their own den, but not from the current lot, or we could have expected Abdul Razzaq to hit 5 fours against the jewel of Australian Cricket those days i.e. Glenn McGrath, they were gritty and and bold, but sorry to say since the time Pakistan started making their teams on fan followings that too from the so called1 roomed media houses, Pakistan cricket had their fair shared to disaster already.
Where is the management, who could take decisions on this scale?
The PCB should publish a lost-and-found advertisement for their management, who're nowhere to be found.
The Solution
Following are some of the solutions which under my limited scope could benefit Pakistan.
Stop thinking on the shorter scale and think on the broader-cum-larger-screen
Whatever the decision taken, think for the country, that how much benefit the country would get by the said decision, and link your benefits amid the profit/benefit from those decisions.
Pakistan Cricket as a product
Pakistan cricket does require it to be rebranded as a cricketing product just like it was during early 1990s which the administrators WERE thinking about the cricketing fraternity and were brainy-cricketing-minds of those days, which are needed to think that way.
Linking profits with prosperity of Pakistan Cricket
The problem arises when we declined the basic rule on which majority of the global cricketing bodies have it in like the ECB, that they have linked their prosperity and benefits with ECB, if ECB does well it means they are doing well, because it creates a sense of accountability and transperancy in masses and the stakeholders, who're readily NOT RELUCTANT in investing with ease in the ECB.
Same is the thing we also require to have it in us because this is the high time of competitiveness globally, and if we do not act accordingly, we would be left behind by margin of not years but in decades, as already we lag behind in years when compared globally.
Official merch
In order to promote Pakistan Cricket, the PCB needs to team-up with their official kit partners to have their merchandise be marketing and sold on PCB's official website, because not everyone is in Karachi to buy it from AJ's official merch shops, otherwise a fan is ended up buying the duplicate and the second copy of the original merchandise, which are of the substandard quality, which dilute the standard.
Broadcasting woes
People might say, I have soft corner towards the Indians, but the fact is they have been firm on their Mission and subsequently the Vision, if remember back in those days when before particular series, they use to decide whether they are going to go with ESPN, TWI, NEO sports or Tensports. If I remember correctly, they (The Indian Management) started with their home series against Australia where they signed up with Channel 9, but opted for a standardized presentation quality like even in today's time, if we watch that presentation/production, by watching it we would recognize that it is a Doordarshan presentation.
Whereas
Pakistan lacks in an official production package FOR Pakistan Cricket. Star Sports has its own production templates for Ranjhi trophy and certain other Indian domestic cricketing events, likewise Pakistan does require the same strategy.
Sometimes ago, NZ used to incorporate the same production lines that of the Unisys systems by label of Channel 9, but afterwards they differentiate themselves as because of the production, they were shadowed under their Australian counterparts. But now since they differentiate themselves from Australians, they came into limelight and hence now we know more players of them as compared to earlier where we used to have trouble in pronouncing their names.
Pakistan's production templates
Sony Pictures India pvt. ltd. who owns TenSports now, have the rights to broadcasting Pakistan international home games, but sorry to say presentation template is same for Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the West Indian home games, altogether.
It is just like
Those who play with Powerpoint Presentations would definitely get my point, where we have built in templates over there which we tweak it for our ease, but the fact is we are not willing to use our minds to have an impact on the viewer and the viewership aspect.
I personally used to
I personally do not like to self-praise myself, but those who worked with me, are definitely going to recall this thing that I used to make the Powerpoint presentations from the scratch i.e. using the blank template and than making it my own by making my own theming, which included colour, graphical aspect, fonts, heading 1, 2, 3 and transcript (which every one else used to hate me for this) because unlike my presentations, others used to paragraph their presentations, whereas mine used to be bulleted and hence my faculty instructors always used to recognized my own format like once I made a presentation for a colleague of mine (where I was not part of that presentation), therefore after university time, the faculty member told me afterwards after reviewing the presentation that she recognized it was made by me.
How she recognized
She recognized because I used a standardized template like Heading 1, 2, 3 and having standardized slide change animations which was jelly like instead of exuberant etc instead of manually bolding and having full paragraphs, means my presentation looks was glued in the mind of the viewer which in my case was my faculty member. This is the thing which Pakistan Cricket also requires.
Like I mentioned as above
Sri Lanka and the West Indies have the same template like that of Pakistan, so there should be differentials in order to have it recognized like that of the British Sky for ECB, SuperSports of CSA, Fox Sports and Channel 7 for Australia, and now SparkSport NZ for NZC which is totally unique than the rest of the cricketing world, because this is the need of the current times.
It is like you literally wrote my sentiments, because at the times when Shahid Afridi was debuted, Star sports used to relay our presentation but it was literally produced by our very own PTV technical staff, which meant it was our own presentation instead of today where we're instead of being innovative and proud of our own home grown presentation, which in current scenario is required for redemption of Pakistan cricket and Nationalism.
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