BCCI to sell digital, TV rights for bilateral series separately: Report

This comes after the same template used for the broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) for five years fetched the BCCI $6 billion last year

The Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) will, in the future, sell digital and television broadcasting rights for bilateral series involving Indian teams separately, a report by The Economic Times (ET) said. This comes after the same template used for the broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) for five years fetched the BCCI $6 billion.

"While we are still finalising the contours of the BCCI media rights auction, we will be unbundling the media rights this time by selling TV and digital rights separately," an official said in the report.

The BCCI is expected to auction the media rights in July, and a close contest is expected among Disney Star, Viacom18, and Sony-Zee combine. It is expected to fetch Rs 15,000 crore for BCCI.

Last year, BCCI got Rs 48,390 crore for the 2023-27 cycle of the IPL by separately selling the TV and digital rights. This is three times the amount fetched for rights between 2018 and 2023. Disney Star had paid Rs 16,147 crore for both TV and digital rights.

The ET report added that the BCCI expects the auction process to be completed by July ahead of the three-match ODI series between India and Australia.

"The BCCI media rights tender will be on schedule this year (June-July) and will depend on the Afghanistan tour, but more likely the process will start with the Australia series. The Board will speak to all stakeholders concerned and will come up with an interim decision," BCCI secretary Jay Shah told the media recently.

Media veteran Kunal Dasgupta was also quoted in the report as saying that these matches get good ad revenue, and thus, the contest for rights will be "keenly fought".