The International Cricket Council  (ICC) will release its first Invitation To Tender (ITT) for media rights for the next cycle of ICC events starting in 2024 on June 20. The ITT is for the Indian market only, with up to six packages available across TV only, digital only or a combination of both.

For the first time ever, men’s and women’s rights will be sold separately, and prospective partners can bid for 16 Men’s events (over 8 years) and six Women’s events (over 4 years), totalling 362 and 103 matches, respectively.

The ICC clarified in an official statement that these numbers account for ICC senior event matches only. Men’s and Women’s Under-19 CWC/T20WC matches will form a part of the tender but are in addition to these figures.

Interested parties will be required to submit a bid for the first four years of men’s events. However, they also have the option of bidding for an eight-year partnership.

ICC Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said: “International cricket consistently attracts huge audiences and that is driving significant interest from broadcasters for ICC events. We have more than one billion fans that passionately follow the game globally, and they will be looking forward to seeing the best players in the world competing for cricket’s most prestigious trophies.

“There has been significant growth in interest in women’s cricket over the last five years and we have made a long-term strategic commitment to accelerate that growth and unbundling the rights for our women’s events will play a huge role in that. We are looking for a broadcast partner who is excited by the role they will play in growing the women’s game and ensuring more fans than ever before can enjoy it.”

A decision will be made by the ICC Board in September 2022. The ITTs for additional markets will be released following that, the statement added.

Disney, which lost out to Viacom18 for IPL digital rights, probably could go hard at the rights for ICC cricket.

Bagging both the TV and digital rights, according to industry experts, would be good for Disney+Hotstar, which, till now, had used IPL streaming rights to pull in subscribers. A substantial part of Disney+ subscriber base is courtesy Hotstar.