- Reliance wins streaming rights, Disney gets TV option
- Per match $15m catapults the IPL over English football
By Anto Antony
June 14, 2022
The cost to acquire media rights for the Indian Premier League tripled to 483.9 billion rupees ($6.2 billion), catapulting the cricket tournament over the English Premier League as global firms vie for subscribers on the subcontinent.
Viacom18 Media Pvt., a joint venture between Paramount Global and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., won digital streaming rights for 238 billion rupees, Jay Shah, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said on Twitter Tuesday. Walt Disney Co. bagged television rights for about 236 billion rupees.
For the first time ever, streaming rights beat traditional broadcast bids, highlighting how crucial the five-year contract is for Ambani’s ambitions to vault into the club of global over-the-top media behemoths. The IPL lured more than 600 million viewers this year and is seen as the quickest way to boost subscribers in a market with almost 1.4 billion people.
At $15.1 million per match, the IPL overtakes the English football league’s $11 million, leaving it behind only America’s National Football League at $17 million, according to data from the BCCI. The total money raised exceeds the 328 billion rupees floor-price set by the BCCI and is nearly three times the amount collected at the previous auction in 2017.
Disney shares fell 3.7% on Monday amid a broad market selloff, extending this year’s loss to 38%. Reliance shares slipped 1.3% in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Maximum Eyeballs
“There are media companies that are looking at IPL as the most important sporting event in the world,” Tarun Pathak, research director at consultancy Counterpoint Research, told Bloomberg Television. “You’re getting the maximum eyeballs from a young nation. The key message here is that companies are betting on India’s future.”
Four contracts starting 2023 were up for grabs, broadly covering television and digital rights in the Indian subcontinent and overseas, as well as a pick of key matches. KPMG Corporate Finance advised the sports body on the auction, according to the BCCI.
Despite Amazon.com Inc.’s surprise pullout at the last moment, the auction has seen heated competition. Before the US technology giant exited the race, people familiar with the developments expected the auction to lure more than 400 billion rupees in total bids, with one analyst even predicting as much as 600 billion rupees.