A bill was introduced into the Australian parliament today to protect cricket’s men’s and women’s ICC World T20 tournaments in 2020 from ambush marketing.
Under the bill, tournament sponsors would gain the same level of protection as those of this year’s Commonwealth Games, soccer’s 2015 Asian Cup and the 2015 Cricket World Cup, all of which Australia also hosted.
The aim is to protect World T20 signs and images to help the tournaments to hit sponsorship revenue targets.
Last month, the International Cricket Council, the sport’s world governing body, agreed a deal for Bira 91, the Indian craft beer brand making its first foray into sport, to become an official partner of the ICC through to 2023.
The partnership includes the World T20 as well as next year’s ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in England and Wales, and the ICC World Test Championship, ICC U19 Cricket World Cup and the ICC Women’s Championship.
The women’s World T20 tournament is scheduled for 21 February to 8 March 2020, six months ahead of the men’s tournament which is due to take place on 18 October to 15 November.
There will be equal billing for the two competitions, with both finals to be held at the showpiece Melbourne Cricket Ground, which has a capacity of 100,000.
The elevated status given to the female T20 competition reflects the growth in popularity of women’s cricket, driven by Australia’s Women’s Big Bash League and the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup, the elite one-day international competition, held in England.
The men’s World T20 will feature 16 teams and the women’s event 10 teams, and the tournaments will utilise 13 venues in the eight host cities of Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Geelong, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.