As talk swirls around JioStar-ICC deal, the ground reality is more layered

At around 6.38 PM IST on Tuesday, JioStar unveiled its Twenty20 World Cup teaser.

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There are two more years left in the broadcast deal between ICC and JioStar.

The short clip, effectively a promotional campaign for the blue-riband global event of 2026, comes against the backdrop of media reports and intense social media speculation that the official broadcaster - one of the world's largest networks - is looking to exit from its four-year media-rights deal with the International Cricket Council (ICC).This is not to suggest that launching a marketing campaign rules out the possibility of the broadcaster pulling the plug on its USD 3-billion deal, but the two developments don't quite sit comfortably together. "They don't add up," said an industry expert, noting that an exit from such a mega agreement would be untimely and hasty. "The contracts are watertight, and there would be bank guarantees involved as well."

More pertinently, JioStar - earlier Star Sports before the mega merger about 12 months ago - has enjoyed a long-enduring relationship with the ICC, having entered into a commercial association way back as 2007. Star's collaboration with other parties came much later with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2011, and with the IPL in 2018. After such a sustained and mutually beneficial alliance, neither party would want to take the matters to the point of arbitration.