Last Updated on 3 years by Charbel Coorey
Cricket News: IPL media rights value: Bids cross incredible US$13.44M per match | IPL becomes second-most lucrative sports product after NFL
The Indian Premier League (IPL) has become the second-most lucrative sports product after the NFL in a day of intense bidding at the IPL media rights E-auction on Sunday.
The value of a single game is now US$13.44 million, which may yet increase as bidding is set to continue this week. Only the NFL (US$35.07 million) is higher in world sport, with a game of IPL now more valuable than a game in the English Premier League (EPL). As per the figures in the 2022-25 cycle, the EPL is valued at US$11.34 million per match.
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Heading into the E-Auction, the general consensus was that the media rights could cross the US$5 billion mark. According to Cricbuzz, after the first day, the combined sum bid stood at approximately US$5.5 billion (INR43,050 crore), already a 140% increase than the US$2.55 billion Star India forked out for the 2018-2022 IPL rights.
Bidders Disney-Star, Sony, Viacom-Reliance, Zee, Fun Asia, Super Sport and Times Internet showed no signs of budging. Bidding will resume with little idea of just how large the IPL media rights package will be for the 2023-27 cycle.
“We are very happy with the day’s proceedings,” said IPL chairman Brijesh Patel to Cricbuzz. Each of the ten franchises will hold similar views as their share from the central revenue pool is set to exceed Rs 400 crore (approx. US$51.14 million). During IPL 2022, seven of the ten franchises were valued at US$1 billion or more, and the IPL media rights will be another big boost to their respective values.
Bidding began for Package A (television rights) and Package B (digital rights) at base prices of Rs 49 crore (US$6.3m) and Rs 33 crore (US$4.2m) per match respectively. The highest bid for Package A on was INR 57 crore (USD 7.29 million), 16.3% higher than the base price set. The highest bid for Package B was INR 48 crore (USD 6.14 million), a huge 45.4% higher than the base price.
