IPL Media Rights: How The Numbers Stack Up
The sale of IPL media rights for the next five years fetched a total of Rs 44,075 crore.
The Indian Premier League has cemented itself as one of the world's most lucrative sports entities after its media rights were auctioned for three times the value of the previous contract.
Viacom18 Media Pvt., part of Mukesh Ambani-controlled Network18 Group and backed by James Murdoch and media veteran Uday Shankar, bid Rs 23,758 crore for the digital rights, Jay Shah, honorary secretary at the Board of Control for Cricket in India, tweeted. Disney Star won TV rights for the Indian subcontinent for Rs 23,575 crore.
Times Internet bagged the rest of the the world rights for the Middle East North Africa and the United States, while Viacom18 won Australia, South Africa, and United Kingdom.
The auction fetched the BCCI Rs 48,390 crore for the next five years, nearly three times what the cricket board earned from Star in the previous five years. The base price was Rs 32,890 crore.
Elara Capital had forecast IPL media rights for the next cycle (2023-2028) to grow three to fourfold to Rs 50,000-60,000 crore, led by the “sharpest growth in digital media”.
In 2008, when the tournament was launched, the cricket board had sold the TV rights to Sony Pictures Network for Rs 8,200 crore for a period of 10 years. After that, Star India won the TV and digital broadcasting rights for the 2018-22 cycle for Rs 16,350 crore.
A large-ticket property such as IPL, according to Elara, is very important for any broadcaster to drive its digital strategy. IPL leads to a big surge in various metrics such as monthly active users for any OTT platform, the brokerage said in its June 3 report.
With the latest auction for media rights, IPL is bridging the gap with some of the world’s biggest sport leagues.
IPL media rights’ revenue CAGR at 10.4% is much higher than other global leagues’ such as English Premier League, National Football League and National Basketball Association—that have grown at 8% CAGR since their inception.
By brand value, Elara Capital said IPL is the fourth-most valuable in the world.
(Updates an earlier version with the final number announced by the BCCI)