IPL media rights: Final bidding likely to decide unfettered winner of TV, OTT properties

New Delhi : In order to increase BCCI’s windfall from the Indian Premier League media rights, there could be a final bidding after selling the TV and OTT properties separately, to get one unfettered winner.

The BCCI on Tuesday released the tender for the IPL media rights for the 2023-27 cycle. It will be the first time since the IPL’s inception that an e-auction will be held to determine the next holder of the tournament’s media rights.

The Indian cricket board has set a combined base price of Rs 33,000 crore (Rs 32,890 crore to be precise) for the media rights of the Indian Premier League, a Cricbuzz report said.

According to the information available, there will be four bundles in the tender including a non-exclusive cluster. Bundle A is for the India sub-continent television rights while Bundle B is for the digital rights.

On the other hand, the Bundle C will have the rights of non-exclusive 18 games — the opening match, four play-offs and the night games of the double headers. This bundle is only for the OTT players and only one player can buy this bundle. The fourth and final bundle is for the rest of the world.

Notably, in the latest Invitation to Tender (ITT), provisions have been made for the winners of the TV rights to challenge the digital rights holders, setting off one final round of e-bidding that will provide an opportunity for one party to acquire both TV and OTT rights. Similarly, the holders of digital rights can challenge the winners of Bundle C – a limited non-exclusive package.

However, only Bundle A winners can challenge the Bundle B winners, not the other way round, ostensibly because the payout by the former would be more than the latter’s.

Similarly, the Bundle B winners can challenge the winners of Bundle C. But, the chances of this happening are remote as the digital rights holders would be paying twice over for those 18 non-exclusive games.

The whole exercise — with Rs 49 crore base price for TV rights, Rs 33 crore for digital, Rs 16 crore for 18 non-exclusive games and Rs 3 crore for rest of the world rights — may take a couple of days, or more, once the e-auction is set in motion on June 12.

–IANS