BCCI media rights auction to be live streamed

What's the story?

The BCCI would live stream the bidding process for the allocation of the Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights on Monday. This 'first of its kind move' is aimed at bringing transparency to the media rights allocation process in the wake of Rajya Sabha MP Subramanium Swamy's appeal in the Supreme Court for e-auctions of the media rights.

According to a Pune Mirror source, arrangements are being made to live-stream the media rights auction on either BCCI's official website bcci.tv or iplt20.com or both.

A total of 24 entities have bought the invitational tender, including broadcasting giants Sony and Star, and the last date for submitting the bids is Monday, September 4. Media rights for a five-year period (2018-22) would be allotted the same night.

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Several businesses have expressed their interest in acquiring the rights to broadcast the IPL including e-commerce big-shot Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd and the latest telecommunication heavyweight Reliance Jio Digital.

Followon Interactive Media, Times Internet Ltd, Gulf DTH, SuperSport International, GroupM Media India, beIN IP, Econet Media Group, Sky UK, ESPN Digital Media, BTG Legal Service, Twitter, Facebook, Discovery, Airtel, Yahoo and DAZN Perform Group and BT Sport have also brought the invitational tenders.

The heart of the matter

The Supreme Court had ruled in the BCCI's favour and quashed Swami's appeal to e-auction the media rights and the board -- that's already at loggerheads with the apex court over the implementation of Lodha reforms -- has decided to make an unprecedented move.

Two major changes can be noticed this time as compared to the last auction -- way back in 2008 when the media rights were sold to Sony for a ten-year period. One, the rights would be auctioned for a five-year period (2018-22) and two, media rights for seven territories would be up for grabs as opposed to India and international rights that were offered in 2008.

Indian television rights, presumably, are supposed to invite an intense bidding war.

The conditions laid out in the tender make it mandatory for the digital partners to delay the live stream by five minutes and allocate 80% of the total bidding amount to broadcast rights, thereby making the equation extremely favourable for Sony and Star.

What's next?

The competition is supposed to be a two-way war between Sony and Star and a never-seen-before amount is expected if BCCI CEO Rahul Johri's words of the IPL being 'the biggest media property' are to be believed.

Author's take

Stiff competition for IPL media rights augurs well for the board, both financially as well as from a business standpoint. In June, mobile headset manufacturer Vivo had acquired the IPL sponsorship rights for INR 2199 crore for the next five seasons (2018-2022). This was a jump of over 454% from the last contract signed in 2012.

The corporates' interest in the IPL also proves that the league has moved on from its tainted image following the spot-fixing allegations of 2013. Pepsi Co had ended its association with the league after the 2015 season citing the league's depleting image as the reason.