On Monday, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) conducted the Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights auction in Mumbai. Initially, 24 companies were in contention for the several rights up for grabs. The BCCI is expected to net around Rs 20,000 crore.
Various big companies like Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, Reliance Jio, STAR India, Sony Pictures, Discovery, Sky, British Telecom and ESPN Digital Media have purchased the bid. The bids will be divided into television and digital rights.
However, Star has acquired the IPL media rights, including both TV and digital rights, for a mountainous INR 16,347.50 crores for a period of five years (2018-2022).Bids were called for television and digital rights across categories that separate the Indian sub-continent from other continents, that include: USA, Europe, Middle East, Africa regions and the rest of the world. Companies were given the option of presenting a consolidated bid with a breakdown of the sum of parts or a breakdown of bids depending on the market they were eyeing for.In 2008, with a bid of 8200 crores, Sony Pictures Network had acquired the IPL media rights for a duration of a decade. The global digital rights of IPL was handed over to Novi Digital (three years) in 2015 for 302.2 crores.
