The company plans to make the JioCinema app the streaming destination for live sports.
These include football leagues LaLiga (Spanish), Ligue 1 (French) and Serie A (Italy), as well as the NBA and ATP Masters (Tennis) and Abu Dhabi T10 (cricket) properties. The decision on the Indian Premier League (IPL) will be taken later.
“JioCinema is going to be our digital destination for sports, starting with FIFA 2022 in Qatar. We’ll also be moving other sports properties to JioCinema,” Anil Jayraj, CEO, Sports at Viacom18 confirmed to ET.
He added that JioCinema will be available for download across all telcos-Jio, Airtel, and Vi-and across all devices, including iOS, Android and connected TVs, for free.
“The most important thing is, it is going to be without any subscription fee,” Jayraj said. “This will be the first time, when a marquee content like FIFA, people can just download the app and watch it for free.”
While on linear TV, FIFA matches will be available on Sports18-1 in standard and high-definition. On JioCinema, they will be available in multiple languages, English, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and Bengali. At no subscription cost, JioCinema will also be offering a 4K feed of the entire tournament to its viewers. Other offerings will include multi-camera views, which is not possible on linear television.
ET first reported on September 10, last year, that Viacom18 had acquired the rights to FIFA World Cup 2022, for a whopping $55 million. The reason behind selecting JioCinema over VOOT was the higher base of the service.
