The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly seems happy with the recent success in the media rights auction of the Indian Premier League (IPL) that went to Viacom and Star at astronomical prices. Ganguly said that the board’s top brass was always confident that the media rights would be a huge success. The board president further said that BCCI was planning to improve the fan experience in the stadiums and host the tournament with more grandeur from next season.

IPL media rights for a 5-year cycle from 2023-27 were sold for huge money of INR 48,390 crore. In a stunning assertion of the growth of digital viewership in India, the value of the digital rights for the Indian subcontinent was for a humongous price of INR 23,758 crore, which is more than the TV rights which were sold for INR 23, 575 crores. Based on 74 games each season for the next five years, the combined TV and digital rights for the sub-continent rights are worth 397.75 billion rupees ($5.09 billion).

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During a recent chat with Sportstar, Sourav Ganguly said, “We will work on it for sure and develop overall infrastructure for a better fan experience. A lot of new stadiums have come up, and the infrastructure of cricket in this country is huge. We will redo a few stadiums a bit and bring back IPL with a completely different extravaganza and fandom next year.”

He further added, “The last two years have been affected by COVID and the biggest thing is that despite COVID, we managed to host the tournament and this time, we finished it with great hype in Kolkata and Ahmedabad,” Ganguly said while lauding the IPL 2022’s grand finish after the last two editions saw the playoffs being held in the UAE.

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BCCI President concluded, “It’s a great tournament and it will continue to thrive. But most importantly, the IPL has to go back to a home-and-away format from next year.”