After two days of intense bidding, Viacom18, backed by Mukesh Ambani, won the Indian Premier League online rights, while Disney Star retained its stranglehold on TV rights.

The Board of Cricket Control of India has yet to officially announce the winners but sources said Viacom18 became the top bidder for the digital rights at ₹20,500 crore and Disney Star secured the TV rights for 23 ₹575 crore for the next five years. Star had acquired the TV and digital rights for ₹16,347 crore in the previous auction in 2017. In comparison, BCCI would fetch a combined sum of ₹44,075 crore for Viacom18 and Disney Star.

Fight for exclusive digital rights

The overall amount of the offer could increase further as the tender for the non-exclusive digital rights to broadcast 18 important Premier League matches is still ongoing. The highest bid for this segment was ₹1,700 crore. So far, Premier League Cricket has racked up a value of ₹46,700 crore, nearly three times Disney Star’s winning bid in 2017. The total bid amount could reach ₹50,000 crore as Viacom18 is likely to fight to retain exclusive digital rights. , according to experts.

Broadcast rights for the rest of the world have yet to be auctioned. Thus, the e-auction will continue, at least for one more day. BCCI will only make an official announcement of the winner after the sale of the four packages. By the end of the second day, the league had a price per game of ₹126 crore. Reports also suggest that Viacom has secured rest of the world streaming rights for Australia and European territories.

Incumbent broadcaster Disney Star can partly attribute its rise in media and entertainment to the IPL. Thus, the partial changeover of broadcasting rights will upset the competitive landscape of media and entertainment spaces and bring out new players. Santosh N, Managing Partner at D&P Advisory, explains, “IPL was one of the main reasons why Hotstar gained substantial subscribers in 2018. Currently, Hotstar is one of the top three platforms forms OTT and is the only competitive local OTT with global giants such as Netflix. and Amazon. If Reliance won the digital rights, they now have the content to bolster subscribers and will certainly make the necessary investments to make their platform (Voot) comparable to the top player.

Santosh added that the sharing of broadcasting rights between two entities, which is happening for the first time, will also benefit viewers. Both broadcasters will need to innovate with their IPL programming to attract audiences.

According to analysis by Karan Taurani of Elara Capital, the value of television rights has doubled compared to the previous cycle. “Digital rights, on the other hand, should be multiplied by 5.5 (if non-exclusive rights are also taken into account),” Taurani added.

“We expect the break-even point to only occur in year three for digital and TV rights. TV gross profit will peak at 12% in year five, while digital gross will reach 35% in the fifth year,” Taurani said.

Published on

June 13, 2022