Star Sports’ 5-year broadcasting rights deal with IPL came to an end as the 2022 season concluded. Star India (now acquired by Disney) had spent a whopping amount of INR 16,347 crore (USD 2.55 billion) to bag the media rights of IPL for the 2018-2022 cycle. But now after five years, the brand value of the Indian Premier League has been scaled and the bid now can go 3 to 4 times up.
BCCI has invited bidders to take part in the auction which will take place on June 12. Heavyweights including Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon and Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio have also registered for the auction among former broadcasters. The bid for telecast rights will start from INR 18,310 crore for 5 years while the digital rights bid will start from 12,210 crore for the same time period.
However, former broadcasters Star and Sony are still the top contenders to bag the TV rights deal. But fights can be seen for streaming rights as many big players have entered the game. Below is the list of potential bidders.
Star Sports (Disney)
Ster won’t let the deal go out of their hands easily. They owned both broadcast and streaming rights in the Indian subcontinent for the last 5 years. Star Sports televised IPL in 6 languages on different channels while their OTT platform Disney+Hotstar streamed the IPL 2022 season in 9 languages.
Sony
In 2015, Sony let go of the IPL media rights after broadcasting it for 8 seasons. Now they are going to another shot at the auction. Back then Sony had mainly two channels Sony Max and Sony Six which used to televise the cash-rich league. But now they have owned sports channels named Sony Ten 1,2,3 and Sony Six as well. While their OTT platform is Sony Liv.
Jio/Viacom 18
Jio and Viacom18 are both owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance. Viacom 18 recently entered the sports broadcasting market by acquiring the media rights of football leagues like La Liga, and Ligue 1. Also, they have bagged FIFA World Cup 2022 rights and now they are eyeing Cricket tournaments. The Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio is set to launch its TV channel and if they succeed to bag IPL rights, it will be a mega boost for the channel.
Amazon Prime Video
American giant Amazon is also keen to fetch the digital rights. Currently, the OTT platform has a deal with New Zealand Cricket and now they are eying to seal the IPL deal with BCCI. The base price for the streaming rights of the league will start from INR 33 crore per match. For five years the calculation is INR 12,210 which may increase 2 to 3 times in the auction.
Youtube
Google-owned video app has also joined the race. Youtube is the biggest online video platform in the world having 2.6 billion users. Before this Youtube experimented it when they streamed IPL live in 2010.
Netflix, Apple, Facebook
As per reports, the three companies have also registered for the auction and will be interesting to see how much they bid.
Fancode, MX Player
Fancode is a fast-growing cricket streaming app which is backed by Dream Sports. They have bought the digital rights of many small cricket leagues around the world. Also, FanCode are the exclusive broadcaster for Cricket West Indies until 2024. They have also owned the rights to stream Bundesliga in India. While MX Player is another OTT app that acquires rights of web series and movies.