Google’s longest game
Google has spent fifteen years embedding itself into cricket's ecosystem: as a platform, a sponsor, a rights-market observer, and now a kingmaker. The sport's two biggest auctions arrive in 2027. The groundwork is already laid.
At 5 am on February 7, American viewers opened YouTube to watch the United States play India at the T20 World Cup, guided by a voice that felt more like a friend in a sports bar than a broadcast professional.
Jimmy O’Brien, the New Jersey-born sports creator known as Jomboy, was on commentary. O’Brien discovered cricket during two childhood years in New South Wales, Australia and spent years refining breakdowns that made the sport’s rules and rhythms digestible for American baseball fans.
The Jomboy Media YouTube channel became a free entry point to the tournament. The two-match streams drew 2.6 million views across all of Jomboy Media's platforms. The live chat generated 11,000 messages. “Had no clue we even attempted cricket as a country,” one viewer wrote. Another said: “I would have never understood what was going on without their commentary.”
Satyan Gajwani, chairman of Times Internet Limited (TIL), which owns Willow by Cricbuzz, negotiated directly with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. The agreement put the USA’s World Cup matches on YouTube for free instead of limiting them to Willow subscribers.
“How do we make cricket more widely accessible and visible in the US? We spoke to a few broadcasters and OTTs, and ultimately, the biggest platform is YouTube,” Gajwani told The State of Play. “We wanted to, at least in the US, let the Team USA matches be accessible, because the casual patriotic American fan might be interested in watching, especially if the US team had done really well, like in 2024.“
Google has expanded its position in cricket from both directions: through ICC and BCCI sponsorships, and through YouTube’s creators and distribution. JioStar controls most premium live rights in India. YouTube hosts much of the analysis, highlights and fan conversation around them. The Indian Premier League’s (IPL) digital rights and the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) India rights both return to the market in 2027. Google has not said whether it will bid. But it has spent 15 years building the audience, advertiser relationships and cricket partnerships required to do so.
