ICC targets big short-term gains for media rights

MUMBAI: The Indian Premier League (IPL) has got a resounding response from the broadcasters in its latest round of media rights sale, one worth Rs 48,390 crore that will ensure a growth trajectory for the next five years. The next throwing card will come from the ICC as cricket continues to jostle for media rights revenue.

It is learnt the ICC’s tender document is set to hit to market very soon and while it will not be as aggressively priced as IPL’s, a key learning in the draft will be to look at Indian sub-continent media rights from a relatively short-term perspective.

“What they are looking to do is discourage media companies from bidding for eight years,” said an industry executive on condition of anonymity. “The document will be structured in such a way that you can acquire the rights at a much fairer value if you put in a four-year bid. Media houses would prefer to lock the value for eight years but for that ICC is likely to ask for doubling the first four-year value in the second four-year leg. So, if the top bid for four years is 10, the eight -year bid would have to be 30 to win an eight-year deal.”

Traditionally, the ICC events work in eight-year cycles. The future tours program is also structured for such a time span. The 2024-31 ICC events are already in place with one event scheduled every year. Disney Star pays the ICC around US$ 2 billion in the current 2016-23 events cycle. One understands 80% of this revenue comes from the Indian sub-continent rights. Indian eyeballs are key for the success of ICC events.