Top companies to vie for various rights at Indian Premier League media rights auction

Top companies from across the globe is set to vie for various rights when the IPL media rights auction gets underway in Mumbai Monday even as IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla rescued himself from the event.

The BCCI is expecting a windfall from the IPL media rights auction with estimated earnings of over 20,000 crore through the traditional bidding process.

The rights have been segregated in two categories— broadcast and digital (internet and mobile) rights.

The rights on offer are Indian sub-continental TV rights, which is the most coveted along with emerging Indian sub-continent digital rights.

There is also rest of the world media rights on offer which includes key international markets like the Middle East, Africa, Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand.

All the rights will be for a period of five years from 2018-2022.

The BCCI Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Rahul Johri has said that the revenue generation from the upcoming IPL media rights auction could be “historic”, considering the huge interest shown by various stakeholders.

It is learnt that telecommunications major Airtel and web service provider Yahoo have also bought bid document.

Along with them, the other two new companies are BAMTech and DAZN/Perform Group, who also have bought documents. Both BAMTech and DAZN/Perform group are working in the digital space.

In 2008, Sony Pictures Network won the IPL media rights for a period of 10 years with a bid of Rs 8200 crore. The global digital rights of IPL for a period of three years was awarded to Novi Digital in 2015 for 302.2 crore.

The 18 eligible companies, who bought bid documents last year before the process was stalled are: Star India, Amazon Seller Services, Followon Interactive Media, Taj TV India, Sony Pictures Networks, Times Internet, Supersport International, Reliance Jio Digital, Gulf DTH FZ LLC, GroupM Media, beIN, Econet Media, SKY UK, ESPN Digital Media, BTG Legal Services, BT PLC, Twitter, Facebook Inc.

In 2008, six companies had bought the bid document for the first rights cycle with World Sports Group bagging the television rights for the Indian market for a 10-year cycle (2008-2017) for USD 918 million. A year later, Sony bought those rights for $1.63 billion.