Amazon makes big bet on New Zealand to crack Indian market

Amazon has made a big bet on cricket played in New Zealand as a means to help it crack the Indian market. Cricket New Zealand overnight announced that Indian viewers hoping to watch cricket played in the South Pacific nation will only be able to do so on Amazon Prime, the retail giant’s Netflix clone. The deal will start in …

[gurugeorge]

Was free. Now only on prime.

Free to paid = not good for the consumer

But even in india $13.50 a year is about Rs 1000 ie 1% of wages even for a driver or domestic servant that’s almost affordable. A lot of people pay £30 a month for TV here and earn less than £3k/month Ie over 1% here. Yes when you earn $2000 a year you have way less disposable, but a lot of domestic servants kid free food anyway. A friend of mine just moved to India from London to work for the Clinton foundation and earns a UK salary in India

[Cuddles]

Re: Was free. Now only on prime.

But always remember there's no such thing as a free cricket. As the article notes, this is really no different from other deals in which broadcasters have paid hundreds of millions for the broadcast rights. The customer still ultimately pays for it, the only difference is in how obvious that payment is.

Of course, this being Amazon they'll be selling all your personal data to advertisers in addition to taking payment directly, so maybe it's not such a good deal in this specific case. But at least in principle, putting content behind a paywall is usually a lot more honest than pretending it's free while trying to extract money in less obvious ways behind the scenes,

[Anonymous Coward]

"New Zealand’s time zone - seven-and-a-half hours behind India – means matches played there will screen during prime time on the sub-continent."

New Zealand is seven and a half hours *ahead of* India. When it's prime time in India, it's the early hours of tomorrow morning in New Zealand. Even if New Zealand games were pushed until stupidly late at night, in India they would still be mid-afternoon, which is not prime time.

[Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells]

You're right.

I wonder how this makes sense then.

[diodesign]

"I wonder how this makes sense then."

It doesn't -- it was an error that's now fixed. Don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot anything wrong so we can address it right away.

C.

[Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells]

Re: "I wonder how this makes sense then."

[deleted rambling nonsense]

Why is because India are touring New Zealand twice, as the article (now?) says.

[Winkypop]

Paywall

Great idea, for cricket

[Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells]

Surely the (Australian) Big Bash league is of far more value to Indian consumers given the time differences?

Although anything that isn't scheduled for at least three days isn't proper cricket.

( Mines the one with the binoculars in the pocket )

[stuartnz]

" anything that isn't scheduled for at least three days isn't proper cricket" May I be Waldorf to your Statler?

[gs4avs]

Are they still holding 5 day test matches with an additional rest day in the middle?! More a test of fans’ mental endurance than anything else, imo.

[Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells]

A rest day? What fresh hell is this?

[John Brown (no body)]

Wait...what?

What if the Indian cricket team has an exclusive deal with a different broadcaster? Don't the two broadcasters then have to negotiate a quid pro quo when playing away?

[sms123]

Re: Wait...what?

With a little google search:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcasting_contracts_in_cricket

The country cricket boards and sometimes the ICC sell the rights (they own them). The Indian cricket team doesn't own the rights to their broadcast matches (BCCI does in India). New Zealand's cricket board is able to sell the rights for matches occuring in New Zealand to whomever they wish.

The above URL does have some extra information about India but if Amazon only has streaming rights (even if live and on-demand) it will still be shown on terrestrial broadcast TV (perhaps only live though - who knows unless you want to find extra information about the actual contractual agreement).

[NeilPost]

ATP

To be honest after a Ropey start it’s worked well for ATP Tennis and looking forward to how the Nation’s Cup goes from this weekend on Amazon PV.

I’m keener to see how Amazon Sports and Netflix Sports wreck the customer fleecing plans of Sky Sports, Fox Sports, BT Sport, Star Sports etc and their cosy cartels. I think ESPN/Star Sports and Hulu will become a 6th and 7th brands on Disney + soon... and Fox Sports will buy or joint venture with BT Sport - market consolidation under threat from Amazon and Netflix.

End Sports organisations like the Premier League and their pandemic busting Pay-per-view insanity will drive value Sports at Amazon/Netflix.

Everything costs somewhere - whether BBC/PBS, advertising tax funded, subscription tax funded or included as a digital benefit in Prime.