Facebook was among the bidders for the digital rights of the IPL

At the Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights auction held in Mumbai on September 4, major broadcast and telecom sector companies starting from Star, Sony, Reliance Jio, Times Internet and Airtel were engaged in a bidding war for television as well as digital rights of the IPL. However, one name that surprised people the most was that of social media giant Facebook.

While they didn’t go on to win the bid, it’s interesting to learn that Facebook placed a bid of $600 million to secure 5 years’ digital distribution rights for the Indian domestic T20 league. This may be considered as a bold move from the company which now seems to be exploring their potential into live sporting events.

Bold move

According to a ReCode report on Tuesday, the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is willing to put up that kind of money “is a big, bold declaration that the company will write real cheques in order to get its hands on must-see sports content”.

Also with the IPL gaining that kind of traction from a company like Facebook, it just goes on to prove how far the IPL has reached as a brand within 10 years of its existence. Star India eventually bagged the media rights for both TV and digital broadcast as they put up a collective bid worth Rs 16,347.50 crore.

Liga MX

This isn’t the first time that Facebook has expressed interest in live stream a sporting event. It covered the whole Mexican football league Liga MX early this year including the playoffs live on the social media platform. All this just goes on to prove that Facebook has been focusing on original content for its live video offering, particularly live sports.

While Zuckerberg and team are trying to take steps towards sports coverage, Twitter has already done that numerous times on its platform. It streamed the Wimbledon Cup last year in July. They have also reportedly signed a $10 million contract to acquire the rights of streaming some of the league’s Thursday Night Football games.