Four-way fight as Amazon pulls out

MUMBAI: After teasing the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for a second time, Amazon dropped out of the IPL media rights race despite purchasing the bid document. Technical evaluation of the bidders was conducted in Mumbai on Friday where Amazon did not show up.

Unlike last time, Amazon now has a sizeable footprint in India through its e-commerce business and was known to be giving serious consideration to the IPL digital bid.

But with the American multinational company, which holds a market cap of $1.181 trillion, not bidding, the much-anticipated face-off between two of the world’s richest men, Jeff Bezos and Mukesh Ambani, for IPL eyeballs became a nonstarter. Outside cricket, Amazon and Reliance have been locked in a face-off over acquisition of Future Group.

Reliance-owned Viacom 18 is expected to bid aggressively. “It’s clearly not a case of not having the reserves. Perhaps Amazon didn’t see enough value with where the bidding wars would have taken them,” said an industry executive. “If they came into the bidding with a cut-off in mind, there is a chance they would finish second best. They would have wanted to avoid that.”

Amazon’s absence will mean lesser scramble to win the digital rights and could push the valuation in that category down. Other than Amazon, Google, which had also purchased the bid document, did not go ahead. Google holds 7.73 percent stake in Reliance Jio.

Meta (Facebook), which had made the highest digital bid in the last rights cycle of ₹3,900 crore, showed no interest this time, having rethought its strategy to stream live sport.

All this also increases the possibility of one media house going all out for both TV and digital rights, like Star did in the last cycle.

There is no consolidated bid category this time, so each media house would have to win separate categories (TV, digital and non-exclusive digital) one after the other.

All participants expected to bid in the TV category—star, Viacom 18, Sony and Zee (they were declared eligible in technical evaluation)—will also be in the running for digital.

BCCI officials remained unperturbed with Amazon’s decision. They have been maintaining that at least for the upcoming rights cycle, valuations will continue to be driven by linear TV.

“With better connectivity and bandwidth, OTT is the future. But the kind of last mile connectivity that’s needed to enjoy the property on OTT would still take some time. As of now, as a fan, I would still want to watch it on linear TV. We still feel that linear has got deep reach in India as a market. In the current bidding, linear will play a big role,” BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal said on Tuesday.

The base price for TV rights has been pegged much higher at ₹49 crore per match as opposed to ₹33 crore per match for digital rights.

BCCI plans to have 94 matches in IPL from 2027

It was always on the cards that a property growing in value and lucrative for the players would occupy more days in the international calendar.

It is now increasingly likely that a full-fledged 10-team 94-match IPL will be played in a home and away format from 2027.

The BCCI has not made any promises, but bidders have been told to keep a total of 410 matches in mind and not 370 for the 2023-27 cycle.