Ending Sky deal, New Zealand Cricket signs new deal with Spark Sport

Sky Sports have played a huge role in promoting cricket in New Zealand, with their exclusive rights bringing New Zealand people closer. However, the 24-year-long romance has come to an end with NZC with the board signing a deal with Spark Sport, a streaming service, for a six-year broadcast deal. Meanwhile, Sky hold the rights for all domestic cricket matches till mid-2020 apart from other overseas tours. In the deal, Spark will add the men's and women's internationals, the domestic one-day cup final and T20 Super Smash.

"This is a deal which future-proofs the whole of cricket in New Zealand. Live streaming is the future. It allows viewers to free themselves from fixed linear schedules to watch live, delayed, highlighted or clipped content when and where they choose, and on a wide range of devices. Together with the free-to-air component provided by TVNZ, this accord means more cricket games than ever before will be broadcast live. It's time that we make this move now, at a time when more New Zealanders than ever - and especially young Kiwis, consume their sports content through digital devices," David White, the NZC CEO, said, reported Cricbuzz.

Sky, however, will still broadcast the Indian Premier League and New Zealand's tour of India in 2021-22 and 2022-23. They also have the rights to New Zealand's tour of Australia in 2019-20 and 2020-21 and for all the cricket that will be played in Australia.