IPL media rights go up for sale at eye-watering new highs

Indian cricket’s governing body, the BCCI, will in June begin the auction for the rights to broadcast the world’s most lucrative cricket league, the Indian Premier League, at a time when the number of matches is expanding, and different media will be able to bid for different parts of the digital and broadcast options.

Why it matters

The sale is expected to bring in a windfall of around Rs 50,000 crore (for readers not familiar with the Indian number system, that’s around $6.6 billion) for the rights to the 2023-2027 IPL seasons.

For context, the English Premier League (football, the most popular sport on earth) is expected to fetch $13.5 billion from broadcast rights over the next three years. Effectively, cricket is catching up.

In part, it’s not only a question of more content having been added; it’s that the players taking part are of a different scale. Star, the current broadcast holder, and Disney Plus Hotstar, which holds the live streaming rights, will likely fight hard to hold onto the prize property, but tech giants like Amazon, Meta, Alphabet’s YouTube, and Jio are expected to add even more heat to the market.

What’s happening

For the first time, bidders will compete for four different packages of the Indian top flight, which include:

• Digital
• TV
• Rest of the World
• Non-exclusive 18 matches each season

Per analysis published in the Economic Times, this is based on a plan to spread out opportunities to maximise revenue. Other leagues, including the English Premier League and the NFL (American Football) have sold smaller packages, often to non-endemic digital media players for enormous sums.

It’s not only a competition for eyeballs, it remains one of the most attractive advertising propositions in Indian marketing (and, of course, to any brands wishing to reach cricket fans around the world).

But the big news is that the starting price for IPL rights begin at Rs 33,000 crore (around $4 billion).

Sourced from BCCI, Economic Times, Sports Pro Media, Crictrakcer. [Image: IPL]