In what could be a massive setback for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Amazon won’t be reportedly bidding for the Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights for the 2023-27 cycle.
The reports suggested that the e-commerce group, which has deployed around $6.5 billion in its business in India beside operatin its Prime Video streaming service, has conveyed its decision to the Indian cricket board.
According to Bloomberg News, Amazon, which was interested in acquiring the IPL media rights, had initially been determined to score a victory. Earlier, the American retail titan had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on acuiring the European soccer rights. It has already signed a deal to broadcast Thursday Night Football in the US at $1 billion a season until 2033.
Apart from Amazon, Disney Star, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), Culver Max Entertainment Private Limited (Sony Pictures Networks India), Viacom18, Sky Sports (UK), Google India, FanCode (Dream11), MX Player, and SuperSport (South Africa) are the other players now left in the race for the media rights.
As per the industry pundits, the rights for the next cycle is likley to fetch the BCCI over Rs 50,000 crore.
However, unlike the previous times, there are four categories for the rights this time, which are namely: 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.