IPL Media Rights Tender: IPL media rights to be sold via e-auctions

IPL Media Rights Tender: BCCI will deploy e-auction module to finalize new media rights partner for the Indian Premier League (IPL). According to the information available with InsideSport, BCCI has internally decided that the e-auction will ensure better price discovery for the IPL Rights portfolio for the next cycle. The next cycle of rights will again be auctioned for 5 year period i.e 2023 to 2027.

It is worth noting that BCCI had earlier successfully used e-auction module for the sale of BCCI Home matches rights in 2018. Now the same method will be deployed for the sale of media rights for IPL.

“We feel e-auction will be the best way forward for the sale of rights. We are confident that IPL Media Rights tender like the new teams tender will receive tremendous response from the market”, said the senior BCCI official currently in Dubai.

Also read: IPL New Teams Controversy: Report claim CVC Capital may lose Ahmedabad franchise for alleged betting links, BCCI clarifies ’no complaint received’

IPL Media Rights Tender: IPL media rights to be sold via e-auctions, BCCI expectation now ‘40,000 Crores’ after super-successful auctions of new teams

IPL Media Rights Tender: BCCI managed super-successful sale of two new franchises for record price. The RPSG Group picked Lucknow team with a winning bid of ₹7,090 crore while CVC Capitals won Ahmedabad with a bid of ₹5625 crore. The record sale surpassed all expectation of the Indian board. Now the BCCI is expecting same kind of response for the media rights tender.

The expectation numbers are revised. InsideSport spoke to BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal in March 2021 on his expectations on the media rights sales value for the next cycle of IPL Rights – the expectations were in range of 25,000 Crore, which now has gone upto 37,000 to 40,000 Crore.

The current five-year rights (TV and digital) for IPL from 2018 to 2022 are with Star India. The network is shelling out 16,347.50 crore (USD 2.55 billion) for the current portfolio. But according to one of the BCCI official the next 5 years cycle can fetch the board USD 5 billion (round about a magical figure of 37,000 Cr), almost 125% of the current values.

Also read: IPL New Teams Controversy: After conflict of interest allegations, Sourav Ganguly set to exit ATK-Mohun Bagan

“There is a well-known US based company which did send BCCI feelers some time back, expressing their serious interest in bidding for IPL media rights. With 10 teams playing IPL from 2022, the matches will go up to 74 and in any case, the valuation of the property increases,” a senior BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

IPL Media Rights Tender – Potential Contenders

The last time around, there were only two major players in TV and digital media rights market with Star India handsomely outbid Sony, who held the rights from 2008-2017. Star had bid nearly Rs 5300 crore more as Sony’s final composite bid was Rs 11,050 crore (USD 1.47 billion). Star India is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India.

But this time the contender list is expected to grow from 2 to 4-5 serious players. Especially the race for the DIGITAL rights will be extremely tough & fiercely fought for.

Reliance Industries promoted Viacom is likely to join the race and will challenge Star & Sony hegemony for the cricket rights in partnership with Reliance Jio.

The real competition will come from GLOBAL players like Amazon and others. The BCCI normally categorises various broadcast deals like TV, digital (streaming), radio, and social media but last time, it allowed separate as well as one composite bid. Any company can also bid separately but if the valuation of the singular composite bid is more than the cumulative amount of singular bids, then that is considered by the Board.

It will be interesting to see, how this time BCCI decides to package, bundle or unpackage the DIGITAL rights portfolio from the rest of the rights.

Cricket