MUMBAI: The bidding war for the Board of Control for Cricket in India media rights has left in its wake the Indian Premier League, till now the gold standard in value terms. And it’s not over yet with the bidding process set to resume again at 11 am Thursday as no winner has been confirmed by the end of Wednesday’s proceedings.
At the end of the e-auction process on Day 2, the last bid placed was for Rs 60.325 billion – this amounts to a per match value of Rs 591.42 million.
The per match value for the 102-game BCCI FTP over the next five years (2018-2023) has therefore now surged well past what was assumed to be an unassailable bench mark of Rs 540 million per match value set by Star last year in its winning bid for the IPL rights.
As things stand, the current bid marks a 37.54 per cent jump over the price that incumbent rights holder Star India was paying the BCCI for the 2012-18 cycle (Rs 38.51 billion or Rs 430 million per match).
Three companies – Star India, Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Reliance Jio – are currently embroiled in the intense bidding war for the media rights to 102 international matches across 190 days in the 2018-23 cycle.
The bidding started on April 3 and was carried forward to Wednesday with the bid value in the Global Consolidated Rights (GCR) category standing at Rs 44.42 billion (Rs 4442 crores, approximately $680 million).
Wednesday started with a GCR bid of Rs 45.652 billion, then Rs 548.83 billion, and on to Rs 57.48 billion. It breached Rs 60 billion mark (Rs 60.010 billion) at around 4:30 pm before closing at Rs 60.325 billion, minutes before the cut-off time of 6 pm, PTI reports.
Star India owns Indian cricket’s most coveted media property IPL having paid a record Rs 163.475 billion for a consolidated global bid that includes TV as well as digital rights.
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