MUMBAI: Star India and Reliance Jio unleashed a new era in sports entertainment by announcing a 5-year deal. The partnership will cover international matches in all three formats (T20s, ODI and test) and also the premier domestic competitions of BCCI.

Jio and Star will make all televised India-cricket matches available to users of JioTV and Hotstar in India. This will be the first time that a streaming platform and a high-speed data network have come together to deliver the best of cricketing content with connectivity to benefit the Indian consumers.

Star India MD Sanjay Gupta said, “Over the last five years, we have re-invented the sports experience in India across screens, both television and digital. Indian cricket under BCCI is one of the most compelling properties in the world and we are excited to apply the same lens of innovation and re-invention to the property that we have applied to other sports in the last few years. And, with a new partner in Reliance Jio, we will have even more opportunities to raise the bar for cricket fans.”

Jio director Akash Ambani said, “Jio continues to bring the most exclusive content to its users, this time around through the JioTV app. Cricket is not just played, its worshipped in India. Every Indian must have access to the best sporting events as well as quality and affordable bandwidth to consume the content. With this partnership, we intend to address both these objectives of providing the best sporting content with the best digital infrastructure to the Jio users. Jio promises to and will continue to bring a superlative customer experience in the areas of sports, AR, VR, immersive viewing and more in the coming days.”

Jio and Star have been instrumental in leading many such disruptive initiatives, where they have put the consumer in the centre of innovation.