FOLLOWING UP ON SportzPower’s Special Report on the upcoming Indian Premier League media rights tender uploaded last week, some developments and updates!
First off, this website has it from absolutely unimpeachable sources that Discovery Communications owned Eurosport will not be participating in the bid process in any way. Does that rule out Eurosport’s sister company Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific from the fray? Not necessarily.
But now that it can be confirmed that old India hand and current Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton will not be leading the strategy team at Discovery in the event of a bid, SportzPower believes it rules out whatever minute chances there may have been of the one time edutainment focused network considering making a lone bid.
What remains in the realms of possibility however, is Discovery making a bid in partnership with another network. More on that later.
One more confirmation that this website has received is that Subhash Chandra controlled Zee Group is definitely making a bid. This is interesting because till as recently as last year, the network was given the pariah treatment by the BCCI. Which in part explains why the Zee Group chairman, who runs Ten Sports, put the global cricket establishment on notice with a ‘rebel league’ plan a year ago. Chandra’s message: Push him to the wall and he was ready for a take-no-prisoners showdown.
That is all in the past now of course. Cut to the present and we see that both Chandra and freshly minted BCCI president Anurag Thakur are politically aligned. Thakur is a ruling BJP Member of Parliament and the media baron has just become a Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) MP with the support of the BJP.
Aligned or not, the first question that is thrown up in regards to Zee putting its hat in the bidding ring is on the Rs100 billion or thereabouts price tag that the IPL rights come with. The way SportzPower sees it, a Zee-Discovery consortium bid could well be just what the doctor ordered for the two networks in terms of de-risking their financial commitments.
Speaking of price, SportzPower was curious as to how aggressive Star India would be considering the heavy investments it already has made in sport, kicking off with its announcement in November 2013 that it was committing over Rs200 billion into its sports business over the next three to five years. Keeping aside all the other investments it has made into sport in the interim, just its renewal of ICC rights in 2014 for $1.81 billion (Rs120 billion range) would necessarily mean it is out of the reckoning as far as bidding for the IPL is concerned. (More than 2 contenders ready to pay the price in IPL rights chase)
That is till Star India confirmed earlier this month it was looking to invest $5 billion more over the next three years into its business (not just in sport of course). The 21st Century Fox subsidiary’s signal of intent on the IPL rights bid was made at the US-India Business Council’s (USIBC) Leadership Summit in Washington.
So the contenders for the IPL rights now look like this:
1. Sony Pictures Networks India – Incumbent.
2. Star India.
3. Zee Group and Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific consortium.
4. beIN SPORTS and Neo Sports Broadcast consortium.
And which will be the last network standing? SPN remains the odds on favourite to retain the rights, is this website’s considered view. As for the Joker in the pack, the beIN SPORTS-Neo Sports Broadcast tag team might be worth a bet. After all, they were the second highest bidders after Star during the ICC rights bidding in 2014.
