Reports: Reliance's Mukesh Ambani set to claim major stake of 54 percent in Disney India's business

Modern corporate giants are involved in a war to secure bragging rights to take over cricket broadcasting in the country and bank on wooing fans. This trend has been prevalent for some years and it picked up, especially in the last 3 years when some mega events of the International Cricket Council (ICC) were hosted by India. Notably, the country witnessed the marquee event of the ICC Men's World Cup, last year.

Consequently, corporate tycoons are constantly in search of an 'X' factor to keep the fans glued to their screens. However, a big change which transformed the viewing experience has been the inclination towards watching games on OTT platforms or online streaming in various other forms. This culminated in changes to business structures viz complete merger or stake holdings between various media giants via collaboration. Hence, corporate giants like Disney and Reliance too seem quite interested in joining the bandwagon of India media business collaborations.

In the same vein, it has been reported that business tycoon Mukesh Ambani is in talks to get a Disney merger onboard for all the media businesses in India. This essentially will mean that Reliance will hold a stake valuation of 51 to 54% approximately of the US giant whose valuation, as a result, stands at $3.5 billion. Both media giants collectively have around 120 television channels along with their online streaming platforms in India.

Besides, as per a report by Mint, a joint venture of Uday Shankar and James Murdoch named Bodhi Tree may also claim stakes estimated at 9 per cent if the merger comes into existence. Notably, this venture has shareholdings in the broadcast segment of Reliance India Limited (RIL). The deal is expected to take place sometime in February.

Disney-ZEEL battle continues, former to continue broadcasting major ICC events in India

Meanwhile, speaking of the broadcasting and streaming war in India, two giants in the form of Sony and ZEEL are involved in a possible legal soup. Back in 2022, on August 30, the latter announced a strategic licensing agreement with Disney to claim broadcast rights for the men's cricket events of the ICC along with U-19 events as well for four years. This move was executed after the ICC's approval. However, ZEEL failed to pay the first installment (US $200 million approx) to Disney Star and later informed Disney of the intention to back out from the agreement.

Albeit, the matter is still on a cliffhanger Disney will continue to stream mega ICC cricket events exclusively on the Disney Hotstar app. Currently, the US giant will cater to the Indian market and will most likely broadcast major cricket events viz - Men's T20 World Cup, which is slated to be played in 2024 and 2026, respectively. Besides, in the next three years, marquee events like the Champions Trophy (2025), and the ODI World Cup (2027), along with ICC U-19 tournaments are also in the pipeline.