Last Updated on 3 years by Charbel Coorey

Cricket News: IPL media rights could go for US$5.1 to US$6.5 billion | IPL broadcasting media rights value could be over US$5.1 billion

The Indian Premier League (IPL) broadcasting media rights for the next five years could go for a staggering INR 40,000 crore (approx. US$5.1 billion) to INR 50,000 crore (approx. US$6.5). According to The Hindu Business Line, a number of media giants, including big players in digital media, will go toe-to-toe in a media rights e-auction on Sunday June 12.

Star (now Disney) had picked up the IPL broadcasting rights for INR 16,347.50 crore (approx. US$2.1 billion) back in 2018. Viewing numbers were up by around 28% in 2020 due to COVID-19 and isolation factors, while the 2021 edition also saw big numbers due to similar reasons. TV viewership decreased by up to 35% throughout IPL 2022, but it is widely believed that IPL consumption away from television – including smartphones and tablets at the viewer’s convenience – is well and truly the norm.

IPL broadcasting media rights are steep, but bidders will fight for it

Sandeep Goyal, chief of advertising firm Rediffusion, said there will be strong competition at the e-auction despite the steep prices. He believes that sport can form the core of a digital media offering and leave competitors for dead, especially when it comes to a league as popular as the IPL.

“For media companies, sports rights are always considered to be the engine while everything else is like bogies of the train,” said Gopal. “The ascendancy of the media companies and groups is in many ways dictated by whether they have the IPL rights. For instance, for the years that Star India had the rights, they outdistanced all competitors by many more miles. Similar was the case with Sony.”

Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of Ormax Media, has similar thoughts. “There is simply no other content with the kind of eyeballs that IPL gets,” he said.

Also, Kapoor said that the IPL is a huge driver of Hotstar’s revenue. In fact, it is estimated that 30 per cent of Hotstar’s total global revenue comes from India alone.

Can the BCCI sell all its sponsorship slots once again in IPL 2023?

For the first time ever, the BCCI sold all of its sponsorship slots for the 2022 tournament, bringing in an additional INR 1,000 crore plus (approx. US$128.6 million) of revenue. However, inflationary and margin pressures may put some potential advertisers in a state of limbo whether to commit to an IPL deal going forward.

So, the BCCI will have to come up with ways to offer value to advertisers, particularly from a digital media channels perspective. Also, the fear of viewership fatigue – that Ravi Shastri denies – is a possible factor in waning television numbers in 2022.

However, the IPL remains a huge prize for the winning media bidder. Gopal feels there are a few bidders who will go hardest, and picked his providers to watch out for.

“I feel the serious bidders will be Star India, Zee, Sony and the Viacom18-Uday Shankar-Murdoch campaign. It will be consolidated play not digital pure play. No one knows cricket like Shankar and he knows the art of monetisation far better than anyone else,” he said.

The e-auction will take place on 12 June, soon after the bidders went through a mock auction earlier this week.