MUMBAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has extended the time given to prospective bidders to purchase the Invitation To Tender (ITT) document for the media rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) by a further ten days, until May 20, Economic Times reports.
As per the original timeline laid down by the BCCI, the IPL ITT was available for purchase only till May 10.
“The BCCI received some queries and interest in the rights from some big industrialists as well as some global companies owning media assets. As they were still making up their mind and the board wants to expand the pool of bidders, it has decided to extend the date by 10 days,” the business daily quotes a BCCI source as having said.
As per reports, the entities that have purchased the ITT till now include incumbent Star India Pvt Ltd, Viacom 18 Media Private Limited, Sony Pictures Networks India Private Limited, Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, Times Internet, Sporta Technologies Pvt Ltd (Dream 11), Google parent Alphabet (Google owns streaming and video platform YouTube), Supersport International Pty Ltd (South Africa) and Sky UK Ltd.
As already noted, the big names missing from this list are Indian telecom majors Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. SportzPower is presuming that as Viacom 18 is a sister company of Reliance Jio there was no need to make a separate purchase but it would certainly be highly surprising if Airtel has not bought the ITT.
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