BCCI reschedules IPL media-rights bidding process

The lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) has had its fair share of troubles in the recent past. With the Supreme Court holding a tight grip on the operations of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the auction for the broadcast rights of the league for the next five years was postponed from October 25 last year. A clean chit from the Committee of Administrators (CoA) allowed the bidding to be reopened on July 17th. However, BCCI has decided to once again rescheduled it to September 4.

No stopping the juggernaut

Thus far 24 companies both from India and abroad have confirmed interest. Both media and digital rights have seen the giants from media and television battle it out to telecast the most watched T20 league around the world. Some of the names include Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo and Reliance Jio in digital media and Star India, Sony Pictures, Discovery, Sky and BT.

A 3-tier system has been announced for the division of the rights- TV rights for the Indian subcontinent, digital rights and overseas media rights (television and digital). All three rights deals will be for a five-year term.

With the expiry of the previous term of the media and digital rights, Sony Pictures and Star India respectively in 2017, invitation to offer was released by the BCCI last year. Around 18 companies expressed their interest and the bids were supposed to be held in October last year prior to its stay by the Supreme Court.

With CoA’s consent, BCCI has once again resumed the auction process. The IPL has now turned into a global phenomenon with people from around the world tuning in to watch “the combination of cricket and entertainment”. So, that leaves little doubt that the BCCI will do whatever it takes to see that the telecast rights for the next 5 years are sold out at the earliest without any further discrepancies.