On the field, the Gujarat Titans surprised everyone, defied the odds, and ended up becoming the greatest team in the Indian Premier League this year. Now that the scene is prepared for the IPL media rights e-auction — linear and digital – on Sunday, it will be interesting to watch whether a newcomer takes the lead.
The auction pool contains ten or so participants, including some of the world’s wealthiest and most renowned people. The auction raises the potential of a direct battle between Mukesh Ambani, representing Viacom18/Reliance, and Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon, particularly for digital rights.
Bezos is the world’s second richest person. Ambani is ranked No. 9 on the list. The existing media rights holder, Disney-Star, will be present, but the participation of Apple and Google adds spice to the bidding war.
It’s possible that Disney-Star may engage in aggressive bargaining to keep the media rights, and it’s all about the numbers. Hotstar, the company’s digital platform, is said to generate 30% of its worldwide income from India, with the IPL playing a key role. On the other hand, India accounts for only 5-10% of Amazon and Netflix’s global income.
Reliance and Viacom18, on the other hand, have formed a strategic relationship with Bodhi Tree, with the latter spending $1.78 billion in the project. This is an investment platform established by James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems and Uday Shankar, a former Star India executive. Shankar, as chairman-cum-CEO of Star, transformed the scene five years ago when he paid four times the base price for the IPL media rights for his former firm. He’ll now be in the opposing camp.
Star had purchased the IPL media rights for the 2018-2022 cycle for Rs 16,347 crore five years ago. The BCCI has fixed the base price at Rs 32,890 crore for the 2023-2027 cycle. According to a prominent BCCI executive, the biggest proposal is expected to exceed Rs 45,000 crore. The auction dynamics, according to a BCCI source, do not follow the straightforward profit-and-loss reasoning. It’s all about gaining market share supremacy and determining how much firms are ready to pay.
The invitation to tender (ITT) documents were purchased by Disney-Star, Sony, Zee, Viacom18/Reliance, Google, Amazon, Apple, Dream11, Sky Sports UK, and SuperSport SA, according to reports. However, some of them have voiced dissatisfaction with a significant rise in the base price.
The IPL is “unrivalled” as a product, according to a BCCI executive. There is no other sporting event that attracts as many viewers as the IPL. Kasi Viswanathan, the CEO of Chennai Super Kings, concurred. “Perhaps this year was an outlier in that you still didn’t have home and away games.” There was a drop in viewing as a result of this.
Composite bids have been eliminated, unlike the previous term. A corporation can submit bids for each of the three buckets independently. The BCCI has also divided digital rights into two buckets this time: one for all matches, and a third for non-exclusive rights to 18 games per season, including the tournament opener and playoffs. This may entice firms who are ready to take a little piece of the cricket pie in exchange for a large sum of money, bringing the cricket board a lot of money.
To begin with, the addition of two additional clubs increased the number of matches to 74, resulting in the base price nearly tripling from the winning offer in 2017. But, beyond the numbers, the two new teams have attracted new spectators to the competition. The reigning champion Titans, for example, may play in front of 100,000 fans, providing them sufficient opportunity to build a large fan following. This is also predicted to result in a significant rise in TV and internet viewership.
Last year, Manchester United’s American owners, the Glazers, participated in the IPL franchise auction, which resulted in the addition of two additional teams to the league. The Glazers aren’t great cricket fans, but they liked the IPL’s format, which is similar to the NBA and Major League Baseball — a closed-shop league with money guaranteed from certain sectors and no promotion and relegation.
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