Battlelines drawn as India set for historic e-auction
the BCCI managing to get a record-breaking deal of ~16,347.5 crore ($2.55 billion) for IPL media rights, expectations of another windfall are high as the broadcast and digital rights for India’s international and domestic matches go up for sale on Tuesday. The rights to be sold via e-auction will be for a five-year period till March 31, 2023.
The main battle is expected to be again between Star India and Sony Pictures Network, though there are strong contenders like Jio Infocomm, Facebook and Google who could steal the show with their bidding for the digital rights. Yupp TV is also in the fray.
Sony have lost IPL rights to Star, but their strategy of bagging rights of all other top boards (total seven so far) means they already have India’s away matches in their bag. India’s recent Test series in South Africa was a huge hit. But both the big players are under pressure. Having lost IPL rights, Sony are playing catch-up with Star. Star, on the other hand, are looking for better products for the rest of the year, a period during which Sony will be broadcasting the FIFA World Cup.
However, Sony and Star could face stiff competition if Reliance’s Jio decides to pitch in for a consolidated bid. Apart from its digital platform, Reliance has started showing sports on MTV, where the League Cup final between Manchester City and Arsenal was aired recently.
MUMBAI:With
DIGITAL BATTLE
Rights are provided in three packages — global television rights plus rest of the world digital rights; digital rights for the Indian subcontinent; and a global consolidated rights bid. The base price for global television rights plus digital rights package is ~33 crore while the Indian subcontinent digital rights package is ~7 crore and it’s ~40 crore for the global consolidated rights.
Equal interest is on how the digital rights bidding will play out with some experts saying it may
overshadow the battle for TV rights. In the IPL media rights auction, Facebook, Reliance Jio and Airtel had bid over ~3,000 crore each for the digital rights alone. Reliance Jio and Facebook will be serious players for the digital rights but with Star equally focused on Hotstar, it will be an engrossing bidding war.
It’s BCCI’s first e-auction of media rights. Detractors feel BCCI should not have departed from its traditional sealed tender documentation process. Hence, there will be pressure on BCCI to land a bigger deal than last time when Star TV paid ~3851 crore in 2012 for 96 matches.