Cricket Australia is partnering IMG to beam the forthcoming Ashes series live on various airlines and cruise ships. The services will be enabled through IMG’s, Sport 24 channel which beams live sports in various partner air and cruise lines.
The first-of-its-kind agreement will enable passengers travelling with Sport 24’s partners to watch all five Test matches from the latest edition of the historic contest between hosts Australia and arch-rivals England, as well as the five one-day internationals and three Twenty20 fixtures.
Sport 24 was launched in 2012 and is currently available across 12 different airlines and nine cruise lines. These include Alitalia, American Airlines, ANA, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, WestJet, Aero Mexico and Air Seychelles. The cruise line partners include Carnival, Cunard, Norwegian Cruise line, Viking Cruises among various others.
Ben Amarfio, executive general manager of broadcasting, digital media and commercial at Cricket Australia, said “We’re really excited to have Sport 24 on board to showcase our summer of cricket on international airlines and cruise liners. We want fans around the world to be able to see every minute of the action on the field no matter if they’re on the land, in the air or at sea, and this partnership provides the ability to access Australian international cricket content in those situations.”
Cricket Australia’s partner airlines Qantas too will beam the series live for the passengers onboard. “Qantas is proud to support the men’s and women’s teams through our Cricket Australia partnership, and as part of that we’re able to offer more than 400 hours of live cricket over the season to around 60,000 customers inflight every week,” Qantas Chief Customer Officer, Olivia Wirth said.