The battle to purchase media rights from the Board of Control for Cricket in India(BCCI) will start today. The BCCI will auction the media rights for television and digital for the bilateral series to be played in the country for next five years. The BCCI is looking to earn well from the e- auction.Three prominent contenders Disney Star, Sony Pictures Network and Viacom 18 will participate in the auction through e-auction. Zee and Fancode will not participate in the auction. While Google and Amazon were also potentially showing interest in the BCCI rights however they pulled out of the race as well.High stakes auctionsThe rights will be sold in two categories – one for TV rights in India and nearby countries, starting at ₹20 crore for each match, and the other for Indian Subcontinental Digital rights and global rights for world TV, starting at ₹25 crore per match. In the upcoming five years, as per the future tour plan, India is set to play 88 matches, which include 25 Tests, 27 ODIs, and 36 T20Is.Interestingly, the board has set the starting price 25% lower than the average price from the previous cycle (which was ₹60 crore per match). The board is banking on the immense popularity of Indian cricket and the competitive bids seen in the past for IPL and ICC tournaments. According to the Invitation to Tender document(ITT), the BCCI would halt the process if the total cost of an international match dropped below Rs 60 crore.Currently , Viacom18 has the digital rights of the IPL, and they will be looking at digital of the Indian matches as well. Sony Pictures Network, which is merging with ZEE, have the TV rights of the ICC while Disney Star, now has TV rights of the IPL and digital rights to the ICC tournaments. At one point, Disney Star had the TV rights to all three: BCCI matches, IPL and ICC matches.A three way battle between Star Sports, Sony Sports and Viacom18 for the BCCI rights.The auction set to take place on 31st August. (Cricbuzz). pic.twitter.com/nZ7apb5PpV— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) August 28, 2023Recalling 2018 auctionsIn the previous auction 2018, Star Sports won bids for both TV and digital rights for Rs 6,138.1 crore for the period of 5 years by beating Reliance and Sony in the auction.
