On Thursday, after three days of rigorous bidding for Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) media rights have been retained by Star India for a whopping price of ₹6,138.1 crore. It was the winning bid for the media rights of the bilateral international cricket in India over the next five years (April 2018-March 2023).
The BCCI has conducted the first ever e-auction for deciding the domestic media rights and it concluded on the third day in Mumbai with the winning bid ₹6,138.1 crore. This will amount to a world record ₹61.17 crore per match. This is almost ₹18 crores more than the ₹43.30 crore incumbent rights holder Star India has been paying to the board since 2014.
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Sale of these rights means a second huge payday for the BCCI in less than a year. Last year, Star India also bagged the media rights of five years for the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) by paying a whopping money ₹16,347.5 crore which constitutes to be the figure of ₹55 crore per match.
A strong sense of satisfaction for those of us who had been considering an e-auction even for the @IPL Media Rights.
— Anirudh Chaudhry (@AnirudhChaudhry) April 5, 2018
The e-auction had begun at 2 pm IST on Tuesday, and the process closed at 6 pm that day with the highest bid at ₹4442 crores (USD 680 million approx.) The bidding resumed at 11 am on Wednesday and ended at 6 pm at ₹6032.50 crore (USD 925 million approx). On Thursday, the bids rose in smaller gains: ₹6061.05 cr, ₹6085.30 cr, ₹6111.70 cr, ₹6111.70 cr, and finally ₹6138 cr.
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For the period of next five years, Star Sports will telecast 102 men’s international matches, compared to 96 in the previous six-year cycle from 2012 to 2018. The 102 matches will be split among the home seasons as follows: 18 in 2018-19, 26 in 2019-20, 14 in 2020-21, 23 in 2021-22 and 21 in 2022-23.
Incumbent Star Sports, Sony Pictures India Network, and new player Reliance Jio are the three bidders in the fray.
