New Delhi, June 13, 2022: At stumps on Day 1, the scorecard looked healthy. The TV rights bid had reached Rs 57 crore per game and digital rights Rs 48 crore per game. Taken together, the IPL 2023-2027 cycle’s per-game media rights value stood at Rs 105 crore — and Rs 43,050 crore for the five-year period, an increase of Rs 10,160 crore from the BCCI’s base price of Rs 32,890 crore.
More than half the match is still to be played.
“We are happy with the way the day has progressed and the best part is all the bidders have shown keen interest. We are hoping that bidding reaches figures the IPL deserves. The second day will be more interesting for all stakeholders,” a BCCI official told The Indian Express.
The e-auction commenced at 11 am on Sunday, with Package A (TV rights for the Indian subcontinent only) and Package B (digital rights for the Indian subcontinent). At 6 pm, when the day ended, bids on those two categories were not exhausted.
The auction will resume for both the packages at 11 am on Monday. Once they are done, Package C (special bouquet of 18 matches with non-exclusive digital rights for the Indian subcontinent) and Package D (world rights for TV and digital) will come into play.
The BCCI expects the combined rights value for five years to soar past Rs 45,000 crore. And, going by the first day’s figures, Indian cricket is set to witness an unprecedented windfall.
In 2017, when Star India secured the media rights for the 2018-2022 cycle through a composite bid of Rs 16,347.5 crore, the company had pledged to pay Rs 54.5 crore per game. This time, bidding is being done on a per-game basis and the base prices per match for Package A and Package B had been set at Rs 49 crore and Rs 33 crore, respectively.
The jump in the digital rights value is staggering, and mostly in accordance with the cricket board’s expectations.
Five years ago, Facebook was the highest digital rights bidder with Rs 3,900 crore, which amounted to around Rs 13 crore per game. Back then, though, the route taken was a composite bid.
This year, the BCCI sensed an opportunity, given digital viewing’s fast-growing popularity — a 49 per cent post-pandemic growth in digital subscription. The decision to do away with composite bids has also proved to be a smart move.
Converted into US dollars, IPL’s per-game value after the first day’s bidding stands at about $13.43 million. It has already trumped the English Premier League, for which the official broadcasters pay around $11 million per match according to the reports published in indianexpress.com.
Speaking to The Indian Express on the eve of the auction, BCCI secretary Jay Shah was confident that the IPL would go past the Premier League to be the No. 2 sports league in the world in terms of media rights per game.
“At present, a National Football League (NFL) game costs a broadcaster about $17 million, which is the highest for any sports league. That’s followed by the English Premier League, at $11 million and the Major League Baseball figure, too, is roughly the same. In the last five-year cycle, we got $9 million from one IPL game. This time, going by the present minimum base price that we have set, BCCI will get paid $12 million per IPL match,” Shah had said.
Speaking at the India Leadership Council Event, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly said: “I have seen the game evolve, where players like me earned a few hundreds and now have the potential of earning crores. This game is run by the fans, by the people of this country, and by the BCCI, which was formed by cricket fans. This sport is strong and will continue to evolve. The IPL generates more revenue than the English Premier League. It makes me feel happy and proud that the sport I love has evolved to become so strong.”
With no predetermined end to the bidding, the e-auction is expected to be a long-drawn process and the winner is unlikely to be named before Monday evening or Tuesday.
