What’s the story?
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will release invitations via the Invitation To Tender (ITT) for the media rights of the eleventh edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on July 21.
"The IPL Governing Council at its meeting held on July 11, 2017 evaluated the IPL Media Rights ITT and reconfirmed that the existing BCCI tender process is the best approach, both in terms of absolute transparency and a free and fair price discovery, for the IPL Media Rights”, said BCCI’s acting secretary, Amitabh Chaudhary.
In case you didn’t know…
Sony had purchased the rights for a period of ten years, approximating to a total of Rs 6,700, a deal which culminated with the end of IPL 2017.
Star India had grabbed the mobile and internet rights in 2015, till this year, through its subsidiary, Novi Digital Entertainment Pvt Ltd. In 2011, through 2014, Times Internet Ltd won the rights, clinching the deal for Rs. 261 crores for a duration of four years.
Smartphone company VIVO had earlier pipped its competitors OPPO to retain the title sponsorship of the IPL for the next five seasons. The deal, which had been clinched for a period of five years, was a mammoth 554% increase from the Chinese company’s previous contract, contracted to run from 2018 to 2022.
The heart of the matter
The media rights will be for a five-year contract period, much the same way as the title sponsorship rights. The decision to hold the tender was made in the IPL Governing Council’s meeting held on July 11.
All parties that had purchased the media rights tender documents (previously scheduled for October 25 last year), will be given the tender documents for this year’s process as well, without any additional costs.
What’s next?
The final date to seek clarifications on the Invitation to Tender for the media rights is 5th August, and the final date to purchase the document is towards the end of the same month: August 28.
Author’s take
Much like the title and event rights, that went to VIVO and IMG, a lot of money is expected to be thrown into the mix for the media rights. Facebook, Twitter, Reliance Jio, Sony Pictures Network India and Star India were some of the major companies who picked up the tenders last year, indicating that big names are expected for the same this time around as well.
This goes to show that despite more that, even in the eleventh year of operation, IPL continues to thrive as a global brand
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