After acquiring the global media rights for the IPL, STAR India is looking forward to gaining the Indian Cricket broadcast and digital rights, which will help it establish a monopoly over all major cricketing action on Indian soil.

Currently, Star India is the owner of the broadcasting rights which they won for the period of 2012-2018 for INR 3851 crore. The BCCI is expected to open the bid either later this year or early next year, for a period of five years and Star is ready to go all out, according to a source of CricketNext in Star Sports.

One of the Star officials said, “The biggest challenge for Star was to win the IPL rights and it was also the top focus for the network, now that the lucrative IPL rights are in the bag, the company wants to go all out for the India Cricket rights too as that would establish monopoly and ensure competitors (Sony) don’t have any prime cricket property.”

He further added, “We know that Sony already has the 11,000 crores that it was ready to put on line for the IPL rights, Star though is ready to up the game. That is what is the message currently is from the top.”

After the IPL media rights auction, even Star India CEO Uday Shankar said, “We needed the IPL rights because our rights to the BCCI international matches are up for review next March. In the competitive environment of sports broadcasting today, we did not want to take anything for granted and it’s nice to have the IPL after living without it for the past 10 years. We are excited about the digital platform because it has seen tremendous growth and our own experience with the IPL on Hotstar is a testimony to that.”

One of the BCCI officials said, “Where is the question of monopoly here? Star will share the feed of India matches with Doordarshan, which continues to have a far greater reach than any other private network. BCCI will be more than happy if STAR gets India Cricket rights again, depending on whether their’s is the highest bid.”