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Dream Sports’ FanCode to exclusively broadcast ECB’s ‘The Hundred’ in India
Mumbai: Dream Sports’ FanCode has bagged exclusive four-year broadcast rights for England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) new format cricket competition, The Hundred. The partnership between ECB and Dream Sports, the parent company of both Dream11 and FanCode, is a comprehensive sports deal with FanCode as an official broadcast partner in India and Dream11 an official partner.
The action-packed 100-ball cricket competition will include 68 matches played over five weeks starting 21 July. In an entirely new format of cricket, ECB’s The Hundred has eight women’s and men’s teams from major cities across England and Wales. A 25-ball powerplay for each team will allow two fielders outside of the initial 30-yard circle. Each of the eight squads will have 15 players with a maximum of three overseas stars.
FanCode will provide a personalised sports experience to Indian sports fans through many user-first features for all the LIVE action from The Hundred. Some of these offerings include interactive data overlays, fastest ad-free live scores, multimedia commentary, in-depth sports statistics and analytics, real-time match highlights, multiple audio feeds, and much more, the platform said in a statement.
“The Hundred is a new, innovative, cricket competition featuring some of the world’s top players, and we’re excited that fans in India will be able to enjoy the action,” said ECB’s chief commercial officer Tony Singh. “We’re sure it will be a big hit with fans across the globe. As both FanCode and Dream11 are at the forefront of transforming digital sports engagement and experience in India, we are thrilled to partner with them to bring the most comprehensive and immersive sports experience for Indian cricket fans.”
“We are excited to bring The Hundred to our rapidly growing fan base in India,” said FanCode co-founder Prasana Krishnan. “Continuous digital innovation in creating unmatched sports viewing and engagement experience is an important part of our customer promise, and The Hundred, with its unique format, fits in perfectly with what we at FanCode stand for.”
“We are thrilled to launch a comprehensive partnership with ECB for their new and exciting cricket tournament, ‘The Hundred’, with both Dream11 and FanCode,” said Dream Sports’ chief marketing officer Vikrant Mudaliar. “Through this partnership, we hope to drive fan engagement for The Hundred by reaching over 120 million Dream Sports fans in India. ‘The Hundred’ offers a truly innovative format, and we are confident that cricket fans will love this new sporting experience.”
The competition will give equal weight to both men’s and women’s sides, with almost all the matches taking place as back-to-back men’s and women’s matches at the same venue on the same day. It will feature five Indian players across women’s teams – Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, and Jemimah Rodrigues. Cricketing greats such as Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Rashid Khan, Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis, Sunil Narine, Eoin Morgan, Moeen Ali, and Jonny Bairstow, among others, feature in this action-packed competitive format.
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Snapchat parent Snap cuts 16 per cent of workforce in AI-driven restructuring
The Snapchat parent is axing around 1,000 jobs and closing 300 open roles to save $500m, as artificial intelligence makes smaller teams the new normal
CALIFORNIA: Snap is snapping. The Snapchat parent has confirmed plans to cut around 1,000 employees, roughly 16 per cent of its full-time workforce, as it bets that artificial intelligence can do what headcount once required. Shares jumped more than 10 per cent in premarket trading on the news, a brisk vote of confidence from a market that has watched the stock shed about 31 per cent this year.
The restructuring, which also closes more than 300 open roles, follows pressure from activist investor Irenic Capital Management, which holds an economic interest of about 2.5 per cent in the company and has been loudly pushing Snap to tighten its portfolio and lift performance. The firm got what it asked for, and then some.
Chief executive Evan Spiegel told employees the cuts would reduce annualised expenses by more than $500m by the second half of the year. The company expects to incur charges of between $95m and $130m related to the layoffs, mostly severance, with the bulk landing in the second quarter. Staff in Snap’s North America team were asked to work from home on the day of the announcement.
The financial backdrop is not without bright spots. Snap expects first-quarter revenue to rise around 12 per cent to approximately $1.53 billion, broadly in line with analyst estimates. Adjusted core profit for the January to March quarter is forecast at about $233m, comfortably ahead of Wall Street’s expectation of $186.8m.
The harder question surrounds Specs, Snap’s augmented reality smart glasses subsidiary, which Irenic has urged the company to spin off or shut down entirely. The unit has absorbed more than $3.5 billion in investment and burns through approximately $500m in cash annually. Snap is pressing ahead regardless, with a consumer product expected later this year, even as Meta leads the market in the segment.
Spiegel is betting that leaner teams, smarter machines and a consumer AR play can restore Snap’s credibility with investors who have run out of patience. The redundancy notices have gone out. The harder restructuring, the one that requires a hit product rather than a headcount reduction, is still very much pending.
