MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Willow by Cricbuzz, the destination for live, streaming, and on-demand cricket in the US and Canada, has announced a variety of updates to kick off the 2026 cricket season, starting with the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, taking place February 7 through March 8.

Willow has entered into a partnership with YouTube, allowing fans to watch all four Team USA matches of the ICC T20 World Cup for free on YouTube. This will be the first time ever that ICC World Cup matches will be available for consumers across the US and Canada for free, on the largest global video platform. The Team USA matches will also be available for free for consumers on Willow and Cricbuzz.

In addition, Willow has partnered with Jomboy Media to introduce a creator-led alternate telecast, available on the Jomboy Media YouTube channel, designed to bring a more in-depth, personality-driven viewing experience to marquee matchups.

Beyond the four USA matches, all the ICC T20 World Cup matches will be available on Willow’s linear channel in the YouTube TV “NFL RedZone with Sports Plus” package and via Willow’s Primetime Channels service accessible from the Willow YouTube channel.

Willow by Cricbuzz is also rolling out an all-new product experience across its website, mobile apps and connected TV apps, built to be faster, deliver higher-quality video, and make it simpler for fans to access live matches, replays and highlights.

“The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup gives fans a chance to experience cricket at a true breakout moment in the U.S.,” said Todd Myers, chief operating officer of Willow by Cricbuzz. “More than a decade ago, major ICC World Cup matches in the U.S. required $100-plus pay-per-view access. We helped bring the sport into an affordable monthly subscription, and now we are taking the next step by offering free access to some of the most anticipated matches of the year, alongside new creator-led programming and a viewing experience built for how fans engage with the game today.

"We're thrilled to partner with Willow by Cricbuzz to bring T20 World Cup USA cricket matches to YouTube for free, enabling our large audience of passionate sports fans the ability to engage with both the main livestream and an alternative creator-led livestream featuring Jomboy Media", said Marc Hatfield, partnerships manager at YouTube. "Existing & new cricket fans will have the opportunity to hear live commentary with unique perspectives that only the YouTube creator community can deliver."

To watch the entire World Cup, fans can subscribe directly to Willow by Cricbuzz directly or through Amazon, YouTube Primetime Channels, Triller TV and FloSports.

More information is available on the Willow by Cricbuzz website.

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Viamedia has announced a deal with Willow by Cricbuzz, a major provider of live, streaming and on-demand cricket, to provide programmatic ad sales representation. 

The agreement marks a significant expansion for Viamedia from cable into the programmatic streaming space at a time when there is growing interest in cricket, which is one of the world’s most popular sports, in the U.S. 

As part of the agreement, Viamedia will completely transform the ad inventory management for Willow by Cricbuzz, leveraging its advanced suite of programmatic technologies. This allows the company to offer its advertising spaces through modern, automated channels and will significantly improve the accuracy, efficiency and revenue potential of each streaming service’s programmatic ad sales. Advertisers can also expect improved targeting, increased reach, and higher ROI from their ad campaigns, the companies said. 

“Viamedia’s strategic partnership with Willow by Cricbuzz signifies a major advancement into the streaming media landscape,” said David Solomon, CEO of Viamedia. “Our profound expertise in ad sales places us at the cutting edge of digital advertising evolution and positions our partners for unprecedented success. By integrating programmatic technology, we are redefining the reach and precision of advertising and enhancing revenue streams, setting a new pace for innovation in the advertising industry and expanding our footprint in the programmatic streaming sector.”

“We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Viamedia and leverage their expertise to enhance our ad sales strategy,” said Todd Myers, COO of Willow by Cricbuzz. “Viamedia’s advanced programmatic capabilities will streamline our ad sales process and provide our advertisers with more precise targeting options. This partnership will drive substantial growth for our platform and ensure our audiences receive the most pertinent content.”

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA—In the ever-changing landscape of sports broadcasting, meeting the technical requirements for state-of-the-art 4K live sports production is a complex challenge to say the least.

At Fox Sports Australia, we wanted to transform our business toward a new 4K digital era so we needed a storage platform that could support a first-of-its-kind 4K live workflow by providing extreme performance and scalability for live video ingest and highlights-editing, stretching from the live venue to our production facility.

SUMMER OF CRICKET IN 4K

In advance of our 4K Live project covering a summer of cricket, we wanted to test the limits of the Isilon all-flash F800 model. We’ve been using Dell EMC Isilon scale-out network-attached-storage (NAS) as our core media production storage for many years, so with our broadcast production partners at NEP Australia, we chose Dell EMC Isilon F800 all-flash storage to support our production of live sports in 4K UHD video resolution.

After integration testing with EVS and Adobe Premiere Pro, we were very happy with the storage performance and consistency.

With our cricket content broadcast on a new dedicated Foxtel 4K channel, this scale-out NAS solution will allow the Foxtel channel to broadcast in 4K resolution at twice the frame rate of Foxtel’s HD channels—making for smooth, high-quality reproduction of fast-moving live sports action as it happens, when it happens.

To do so requires a quadruple-increase in throughput of live-capture video streams, which of course means updates to the existing production storage and network architecture.

PRODUCTION CHAIN

Fox Sports Australia had to significantly boost its 4K live workflow, which called for ultra-high-speed storage capabilities for both the outside-broadcast (OB) and inside our central production facility.

Up to 30 cameras at the sporting venues capture content in 4K and HD, which is produced in the OB vans using EVS live production servers together with Isilon F800 IP-based storage mounted in flyaway cases. Video editors producing highlights and other packages use Adobe Premiere Pro working with 4K and HD clips directly connected to the Isilon F800. Further post-production and content repackaging takes place in real-time back at the Fox Sports Australia HQ. Clips from the OB van are also replicated back to Fox Sports using Isilon’s SyncIQ technology—which takes advantage of the high-bandwidth IP data network provided from the venue by Telstra Broadcast Services.

Clips created in EVS are synchronized from the venue to our production HQ as they are created. All clips are published and available in EVS IPDirector, IPWeb and Adobe Premiere Pro using IPLink. These clips can then be edited into packages for news and studio programs, broadcast on Foxtel and used for OTT delivery to mobile and web platforms.

A big reason for the success of the Isilon F800 all-flash is its ability to absorb both the high throughput and high concurrency associated with the project. This capability, delivered in just 4RU, allowed Isilon F800 systems to be deployed alongside the OB vans supplied by NEP Australia while also substantially reducing the data center rack space, power and cooling needed at Fox Sports headquarters.

Fox Sports has been working with Dell EMC since 2012, with Dell EMC deploying Isilon scale-out NAS storage solutions for its content creation and distribution workflows. The Isilon all-flash storage solution plays an integral role in the framework of the production industry. It’s signaling what’s to come with all- IP 4K content creation and delivery. The next-generation viewing experience is here—and watching live sport will never be the same again.

Robert Oliver is head of technology at Fox Sports Australia, where he has worked for nearly a decade. He can be reached atRobert.Oliver@foxsports.com.au.

For more information, visitwww.dellemc.comor call 866-438-3622.