ESPN paid about $1 billion for the television rights to cricket’s Champions Twenty20 League, for ten years. From my admittedly limited understanding of the sport, Twenty20 is a recently invented short form of cricket, which takes two and a half hours rather than five days. The best club cricket teams from around the world will participate in this tournament played in India, which lasts about a week. The winning team earns a prize of about $5 million.

The deal equals the $1 billion the network already paid the International Cricket Council, to broadcast other cricket events like the World Cup and Test Matches. Unlike their sweetheart contracts with the NFL, MLB and the NBA, ESPN would also control revenue from sponsorship and merchandising for the tournament.

ESPN’s move is seen as somewhat of a risk, because there will only be 222 matches played over the ten years, meaning ESPN would need to make $5 million per match, just to break even. However, if the popularity of the newly created Indian Premier League is a bellwether, the investment could be quite lucrative.

Whatever the success may be, ESPN’s investment signals their clear intention to make “The Worldwide Leader” more than a ridiculous rhetorical flourish.