Star India wins global media rights for IPL

Star India on Monday bagged the Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights for TV and digital broadcast worth Rs 16,347.50 crore with a single consolidated bid worldwide during the auctions here.

Star India edged out Sony to acquire the rights from 2018 to 2022.

Initially, 24 companies picked up rights papers to contest for the several rights up for grabs in the auction organised by the BCCI.

Several bigwigs of the ilk of Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, Reliance Jio, STAR India, Sony Pictures, Discovery, Sky, British Telecom and ESPN Digital Media purchased the bid rights papers.

The BCCI will now earn nearly double that amount in half the duration (five years) with earnings of Rs 3,270 crore from IPL media rights per year.

The amount the BCCI will earn from an IPL match would be around Rs 55 crore compared to Rs 43 crore for each international match that India play.

"India, cricket and IPL have changed dramatically since its inception (in 2008) and this bid is a reflection of that," Star CEO Uday Shankar told reporters here.

The media rights include broadcast (TV) and digital (mobile and internet) for a host of segments including India, Middle East, Africa, Europe and America.

With Star India winning the rights, it is expected its digital vertical HotStar would be used for live streaming of IPL matches in India.

"Even if it was slightly less, we would not have got the rights. In every category, it was so competitive," Shankar added.

On the popularity of the game, Shankar said: "Despite the off-field issues of BCCI, watching a cricket match in India remains an amazing experience."

BCCI CEO Rahul Johri added: "Our main endeavour to the stakeholders was to provide a transparent process where there should not be any iota of doubt."

Earlier, 14 out of the 24 companies that had bought the Invitation to Tender document bid for various rights, turned up for the auction.

BamTech was disqualified as they did not meet the requisite criteria.

Sony and Star were the two companies which stood the test of scrutiny for India broadcast rights.

--IANS

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