The International Cricket Council has appointed the experienced Sunil Manoharan from India-based pay-television broadcaster Star TV to a leading media rights position.
Manoharan has been named vice-president of media rights at the ICC.
He leaves Star TV after five years in a role in which he handled Star Sports’ sports broadcast rights sales globally.
The appointment of Manoharan comes 12 months after the surprise resignation of Aarti Dabas, the ICC’s head of media rights, broadcast and digital amid a corporate restructure of the organisation. The highly-regarded Dabas had been with the ICC for over 12 years. She had led the ICC’s media-rights team since August 2014.
At Star, Manoharan managed the broadcaster’s relationships with cricket federations and broadcasters to whom rights were sublicensed. Earlier this year, he oversaw Star’s sale of Indian Premier League rights in the UK and Ireland to pay-television broadcaster Sky Sports in a three-year deal (from 2020 to 2022).
His sports broadcast rights experience also includes 13 years at ESPN Star Sports.
The ICC did add broadcast expertise at the start of the year as Anurag Dahiya joined as chief commercial officer from his role as head of content and media sales at telecoms giant Singtel. Before that, he spent 14 years at Fox International Channels, previously ESPN Star Sports, as senior vice-president, strategy and business development.
Media rights manager Lara Richards finished up her work with the Dubai-based body at the end of July and co-founded a sports media agency based in Australia. The ICC began its recruitment for a media rights manager in April.