NEW DELHI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday invited bids for the broadcast and digital media rights of all international and domestic cricket matches to be played in India till March 2023.
As with the Indian Premier League rights tender that the BCCI had put up for bidding last year, the rights for the current cycle of India cricket rights are also being awarded for a five-year period, starting from 1 April 2018.
21st Century Fox-owned Star India in the incumbent broadcast and digital rights holder for for all cricket played in India, for which it had agreed to pay a consolidated sum of Rs 38.51 billion in 2012. The deal gave it exclusive media rights to cricket matches organized by BCCI until 2018.
While the rights covered all international cricket matches played in India and domestic tournaments, including the Ranji Trophy and the Irani Cup, it was on the 96 international games that the BCCI had said India would play in the period that the bid value was calculated.
Star currently pays BCCI Rs 430 million for every home international match (Test, ODI, Twenty20) Team India plays so the big question is whether the Indian cricket board has set that as the base price in the tender it has put out.
SportzPower does NOT see any bid at a reserve price of Rs 430 million as recoverable, more so considering the significant erosion in the quality of international cricket that the game is seeing across all formats.
However, much will depend on how Sony Pictures Networks India, which lost out to Star in the race for IPL media rights, plays its cards. The fact is that Star India does not even need to make a bid. As Star India chairman and CEO Uday Shankar had pointed out to The Hindu soon after winning the IPL rights: “We have a lot of cricket now between the IPL and ICC events and I think we can run a very good business with that.”
Coming back to the India cricket rights tender. The rights will be awarded through an online auction and interested parties can bid for three packages – global television rights plus rest of the world digital rights, digital rights for the Indian subcontinent and a global consolidated rights bid, Livemint reports.
Interested bidders can pick up tender documents from the BCCI starting Tuesday upon payment of Rs 680,000. The last date for submission of bids is 10 am on 27 March. BCCI will start the online auction at 2 pm, the same day.
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