Cricket rights: BCCI set to strike it rich

MUMBAI: THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT FOR BIDDING. IT WILL STOP AFTER THERE IS NO FURTHER BID RECEIVED FOR ONE HOUR AFTER THE LAST ONE

The suspense over the coveted media rights of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s matches at home, both domestic and international, continued at the end of the first day.

The e-auction is a slow process and starting the day at ~4176 cr, the bidding had ended at ~4442cr on Tuesday.

The other bids were ~4201.2, ~4244, ~4303 and ~4328.25 crore.

There is no time limit for bidding. It will stop after there is no further bid received for one hour after the last one.

On Tuesday, the last bid was received about five minutes before the closing time of 6PM, forcing the auction into the second day.

There are three parties in the fray, Star, Sony and Jio, after all three were cleared in the technical evaluation done in the morning. Google, Facebook and Yupp TV had also bought the tender documents but didn’t submit their bids for technical evaluation. It is understood they could have tied up with anyone of the three to bid.

Looking at the activity so far, the parties have bid for only consolidated package.

In e-auction the identity of the bidder is kept secret and only the bids can be seen by those participating.

Star had held the previous rights -- won in 2012 for six years till 2018. It had paid ~3851 crore for that bid. The current bid amount is set to give at least ~600 crore more to BCCI.