The e-auction for IPL media rights began on Sunday (June 12) in Mumbai. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is selling media rights for the year 2023 to 2027. According to reports, TV and digital rights bidding has crossed 43 thousand crores. At the same time, the cost of one IPL match has been 105 crores. Last time it was Rs 54.5 crore. Monday was the first day of the auction process. The auction has been put on hold after 6 pm. Now the process will start again at 11 am on Tuesday.
Till the auction process is stopped on the first day, TV rights for India have reached Rs 57 crores per match, and digital rights have reached Rs 48 crores per match. The bid for Package-A (TV Rights in India) has reached Rs 23,370 crore. At the same time, the bid for Package B (Digital Rights in India) reached Rs 19,680 crore. In this way, the total bid has reached Rs 43,050.
Twelve companies had bought tender forms for the auction. Seven companies are now on the table to bid on in the auction. Viacom-Reliance, Disney+Hotstar, Sony Pictures, Zee Group, SuperSport, Times Internet, and FunAsia are participating in the auction.
Companies that buy media rights can get 74-74 matches in three seasons from 2023 to 2025. The number of matches could reach 94 in 2026 and 2027. Media rights are being sold this year in four different packages. Package-A has TV rights for India, and Package B contains digital rights for India. Package-C includes select 18 matches, and Package-D includes TV and digital rights abroad.
Star currently holds media rights. It will face stiff competition from fellow bidders for its OTT platform Disney+ Hotstar. Apart from Star, many companies, including Reliance Viacom Sport18, Amazon, Zee Entertainment Enterprises, Apple Inc., Dream11 (Dream Sports Inc.), Sony Group Corp., Google (Alphabet Inc.), Facebook and SuperSport (South Africa), FunAsia, Fancode, etc. Purchase tender form. Of these, Amazon, Google and Facebook have decided to withdraw from the auction.
Star India had, in September 2017, bought the media rights for the period 2017 to 2022 at a bid of Rs 16,347.50 crore. They defeated Sony Pictures. After this deal, the cost of an IPL match was Rs 54.5 crore. In 2008, Sony Pictures Networks won media rights for 10 years at a bid of Rs 8,200 crore.
This time BCCI can get Rs 45 to 50 thousand crores through media rights. The board gets 70 per cent of the IPL’s earnings from here. The special thing is that they do not have to pay tax on this income because, under Section 12A of Income Tax, BCCI is exempted from paying tax on IPL earnings. This has been done to promote cricket across the country.