Emirates to sponsor BSkyB’s live coverage of Cricket World Cup

Emirates Airline will be the live broadcast sponsor for BSkyB’s coverage of the Cricket World Cup hosted in England this summer.

The deal is worth 1m over the course of the five-week tournament, which also includes HP Bulmer cider brand Scrumpy Jack’s sponsorship of the channel’s morning and evening highlights package.

The Emirates, the Middle East airline carrier, is one of four sponsors of the competition. Pepsi, NatWest, and Vodafone are also backing the event.

Each has paid 2m to the rights holder, the English County Board (ECB), to attach its name to the tournament.

Sky and the BBC will spilt the 42 games in the competition between them, alternating live and highlights coverage between them. Both broadcasters will screen the final live.

The ECB says its expects about 2 billion people around the globe will see at least one of the games on TV during the competition.

Financial services company CGU will sponsor Talk Radio’s live coverage of the national cricket league. CGU is also the title sponsor for this league, paying 8m over four years for the privilege, as revealed in Marketing Week (February 18). This week Talk Radio revealed it would broadcast live coverage of England’s foreign test matches in South Africa and Zimbabwe this winter. It is the first time BBC Radio has lost the rights to broadcast the sport to a rival station.