JioStar, the ICC’s primary media rights holder in India, has formally notified the governing body of its decision to withdraw from its existing 2024-27 rights agreement, a deal reportedly worth around $3 billion, forcing the ICC into an unplanned fresh sale process for India media rights covering the 2026-29 cycle, with expectations of securing approximately $2.4 billion. Reports indicate the ICC has approached streaming giants Netflix and Amazon as part of that new sale effort.
Why JioStar Wants Out
Reported reasons behind JioStar’s withdrawal center on heavy financial losses the broadcaster incurred from two major recent ICC events — the 2024 T20 World Cup and the 2025 Champions Trophy — suggesting the original rights valuation assumed viewership and advertising returns that didn’t fully materialize across those tournaments. A broadcaster walking away from a multi-billion-dollar sports rights deal mid-cycle is a rare and consequential move, reflecting just how significant the gap between expected and actual returns must have been to justify exiting an agreement of this scale.
The Scale of What’s Now at Stake
India has long been by far the single largest revenue source in global cricket’s media rights economy, given the country’s enormous cricket-following population and correspondingly massive television and digital advertising market — meaning any disruption to India rights has outsized financial consequences for the ICC’s overall revenue and, by extension, the distribution payments that fund cricket boards and development programs across every ICC member nation, not just India.
Netflix and Amazon Enter the Picture
The ICC’s reported approach to Netflix and Amazon for the new 2026-29 rights cycle signals a potentially significant shift in how cricket’s biggest media rights properties could be distributed going forward, moving beyond the traditional broadcast and cable-television-plus-streaming-app model that has dominated Indian cricket media rights for decades. Whether either streaming giant ultimately bids, and at what valuation, will be an early indicator of how seriously global streaming platforms view live sports rights, and cricket specifically, as a strategic content category worth a multi-billion-dollar commitment.
A Warning Sign for the Broader Market
The ICC has separately signaled it expects a roughly 30% drop in revenue from its next media rights contracts in markets outside India, beginning with the 2028 cycle — a figure that, combined with the JioStar exit, paints a picture of a global cricket media rights market cooling somewhat after years of steadily escalating valuations, as broadcasters recalibrate their willingness to pay premium prices following disappointing returns on recent high-value tournament cycles.
What This Means for Smaller Cricket Boards
Because ICC revenue distribution formulas allocate a significant share of media rights income to smaller and associate member boards for development funding, any shortfall or disruption in the India rights sale carries ripple effects well beyond India’s own cricket economy — a dynamic that adds urgency to the ICC’s effort to secure a credible, well-valued outcome from the fresh 2026-29 sale process despite JioStar’s unexpected exit.
What’s Next
The ICC’s ability to secure close to its reported $2.4 billion target for the new India rights cycle, and whether Netflix, Amazon or a traditional broadcaster ultimately wins the rights, will be closely watched as a bellwether for cricket’s broader media rights market heading into an already-anticipated downturn in valuations elsewhere. Expect formal results of the new sale process to become public in the coming months as the ICC works to resolve the uncertainty JioStar’s withdrawal created.
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