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PVR Cinemas has entered into a partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC) for live screening matches of the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 on the big screen at its cinemas.
The company said that under this partnership it will be live screening all India games, along with the semi-finals and finals of the tournament. The T20 World Cup is slated to kickstart from October 17, and the final match is scheduled to be played on November 14. The multiplex chain plans to screen these matches in over 75 cinemas in about 35 cities in the country.
On Thursday, Inox Leisure had also said that it will be screening the India matches, besides the semi-final and final matches, in all major cities of India.
Cinema industry hit
This comes at a time when the hard-hit cinema industry is hoping to witness stronger recovery trends as State governments across the country have eased restrictions. At present, Telangana, Rajasthan and Karnataka have allowed cinemas to operate at 100 per cent occupancy. Other States, including Maharashtra, have so far allowed cinemas to operate at 50 per cent capacity.
PVR said that audiences are gradually returning to theatres with new movies being released, and the screening of T20 matches on the large screen will further strengthen this trend.
In a statement, Gautam Dutta, CEO, PVR Ltd, said: “The big screen offers a unique opportunity to maximise the coverage of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. Cricket and Movies complement each other as in India they are considered as two religions that unite the country. Movie watching and cricket watching is a shared entertainment experience.”
PVR said the 35 cities where it will screen the matches will be a mix of metros, tier-1 cities and tier-2 cities. These cities include New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Indore, Jamnagar, Jalgaon, Nagpur, Amritsar, Dehradoon, Surat, and Vadodara, among others
In recent times, PVR has been looking at widening its content offerings beyond films. Earlier this month, it announced its partnership with NODWIN Gaming to screen sports tournaments live in its theatres.
PVR has a loyalty base of 1.2 million as part of its PVR Privilege programme, which will help leverage the footfalls of movie lovers who are also cricket fans at its cinemas, the company statement added.