Star India wins global broadcast, digital rights for IPL 2018-22

What's the story?

Star India has won the global broadcasting and digital rights for the next five seasons of the Indian Premier League (2018-22) with a bid of INR 16,347 crore. The auctions were held in Mumbai where 24 businesses, who had bought the invitational tender, were expected to compete for the Indian and global broadcasting as well as digital rights for one of the most lucrative T20 leagues in the world.

Star's major competitor Sony Pictures, which had procured the rights from 2008-17 for a 10-year period, could not retain what it had revealed as its major source of sales revenue for the past decade.

Big names like Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, Reliance Jio, Discovery, Sky, British Telecom and ESPN Digital Media purchased the bid. Although, only two companies -- Star and Sony -- were eligible to compete for the rights after the tenders were evaluated. Out of the 24 companies who had purchased the tender document, only 14 made bids

In case you didn't know...

The submission deadline for the invitational tenders was on Friday, September 1. On that day it was also revealed that the media rights auction would be live streamed by the BCCI; so it was this morning (September 4) on the board's website bcci.tv.

Star were the previous holders of the digital rights as well, having bought them in 2015 for INR 303 crore in a three-year deal.

The heart of the matter

The sale of the broadcast rights saw a departure from the previous occasion on which they were sold in that the rights were auctioned for a five-year period as opposed to the 10-year deal that was signed in 2008.

Also, media rights for seven categories -- USA, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the rest of the world, television in India and digital in India -- were up for grabs. All of them were won by Star who made a single consolidated bid of INR 16,347 crore which was greater than any other individual bids.

Start India chairman Uday Shankar said, "We believe the IPL is a very powerful property, and we believe there is lots more value that can be created for fans of cricket on digital and TV."

"We would remain committed to ensure the growth of sports in this country continues to be driven by the power of cricket," he added.

What's next?

IPL would now be broadcast on any of Star India's channels and would also be live streamed on hotstar -- Star's digital platform -- for the next five seasons.

Author's take

In terms of the marketability of the IPL and its popularity amongst the Indian masses, this is a historic deal for the BCCI. Not just that, the bid made by one of the largest TV broadcast networks in India shows the interest that the corporates have in the IPL and how they see the league from a business standpoint.

In June, the title rights for the league were bought by mobile headset manufacturer Vivo for INR 2199 for a five-year period (2018-22). This was a jump of approximately 454% as compared to the last deal that was signed in 2012.

Tweet speak

Here are the final figures for IPL Media Rights for the period from 2018-2022. #IPLMediaRights pic.twitter.com/2y1m0X4701

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) September 4, 2017