Earlier this week, International Cricket Council (ICC) released a statement inviting tenders to provide data collection services and exploit certain data-related rights at ICC Events between 2021 – 2023. The council seeks to benefit from increased competition in the sector.
The tender covers 279 matches at ICC events, including the World Test Championship Finals in 2021 and 2023, Men’s T20 World Cups in 2021 and 2022, and the Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2023. A further 56 matches are from women’s events, including the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2023 and the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2022. The scope of the tender also covers the IUnder 19 Cricket World Cup in 2022 and the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier in 2023.
The official statement said, “The Applicants should have a demonstrated history of providing similar services and exploiting comparable rights. Accordingly, tenders should be accompanied by a compelling financial proposition. Applicants may submit tenders in respect of one or more of the elements set out within the ITT, which shall be evaluated separately.”
As per SportsBusiness, the ICC’s invitation to tender has been broken up into three parts, and that bidders have been set an offer submission deadline of May 25. The three parts comprise of Collection of data for publication on the ICC’s digital platforms in the form of a service provider contract with the ICC. Collection of data and its on-sale to non-betting companies, including cricket and live scoring websites is also part of the tender. Data and betting streaming rights to ICC events, including the on-sale of data and streaming video rights to bookmakers completes the proposal ICC will be looking into tenders from parties.
The structure of the tender raises the possibility of the ICC awarding contracts to three different parties, although it is possible that one bidder is potentially able to secure all three aspects. In the market, the international cricket board will be looking to ride the wave of competition between agencies operating in the data and betting streaming rights space.
Currently the London-based firm, Perform-owned Opta is the data services and data rights partner for the ICC. The company had signed a four-year deal with the governing body of international cricket in March 2016 to serve as the official and exclusive data collection and distribution partner of the world cricket body.