UK’s Sky Sports, South Africa’s Supersport interested in acquiring IPL media rights

The popularity of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has no boundaries and so, the media rights for the next five-year cycle has now also attracted interest from international broadcasters like Sky Sports UK and South Africa’s Supersport, who have reportedly picked up the ITT documents, worth Rs 25 lakhs.

As per the industry pundits, the rights for the next cycle is likley to fetch the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) over Rs 50,000 crore.

As per reports, Sony, Dream11, Star (current rights holder), Viacom-18 and Zee Entertainment (allowed after withdrawing cases against BCCI) have already picked up the ITT (invitation to tender) documents. In such a scenario, the auction for the next cycle is undeniably goint to be an intense battle with a number of interested parties in fray for acquiring it.

However, merely acquiring the ITT document (Invitation To Tender) doesn’t necessarily mean that any broadcasting party will put in a final bid, but with the Indian board segregating media rights into four distinct packages with no composite bids allowed like last time, Sky and Supersport could bid for the ‘Rest of the World’ TV rights.

Moreover, unlike the previous times, there are four categories for the rights this time. The four rights are namley: TV Rights for Indian Sub-continent, Digital Rights, 18 games (inaugural game, weekend double headers, 4 play-off games) and Rest of the World.

Significantly, as the base price is fixed at Rs 32,890 crore, the digital consumption and smart segregation of packages is expected to rise take the valuation above USD 7 billion.

The last date for buying the bid document is May 10 and the e-auction, if it happens, will take place after the ongoing edition of the TATA IPL.

Earlier, Star India, the current official broadcaster of the cash-rich league, had paid a whopping Rs 16,347.5 crore for the 2018-2022 cycle.

In February 2022, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) chief had said that he was expecting a rise of more than double in value of IPL rights for the next 2023-27 cycle.

“12,000 Crore for sale of two franchises was phenomenal. Fingers crossed, we should get 40,000 crore plus from the IPL Media Rights. The tenders will be conducted soon by the BCCI”, Sourav Ganguly had expressed during a chat show ‘Backstage with Boria’ few months back.

Earlier in October, the BCCI had already fetched Rs 12,725 Crore from the sale of two new IPL franchises – Lucknow and Ahmedabad.

While RPSG Ventures Ltd. had acquired the Lucknow franchise for Rs 7090 crores, the Irelia Company Pvt Ltd. (CVC Capital Partners) bagged the Ahmedabad franchise for Rs 5625 crores.

“50,000 Crore for the Indian cricket, BCCI can and will further take sport to the next level. Already IPL has benefitted Indian cricket big time & with these monies the sport can go to completely different level”, the BCCI chief added.

One of the main reason for the increase in the IPL media rights value would be increase in the number of matches from next season.

News Desk

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