Disney Star bag TV rights; Viacom 18 pick up Digital rights: Reports

The Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights have hogged the limelight over the past few days, with multiple players ready to spend big bucks to get their hands on the money-spinning machine that the tournament is.

According to PTI, Disney Star have acquired the TV rights for a humongous Rs 23,575 crore, while Viacom 18 has bagged the digital rights for Rs 20,500 crore.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is set to stockpile Rs 44,075 crore in their bank with just these two deals for the Indian sub-continent alone.

An unnamed BCCI official said, "Star has retained Indian TV rights of IPL for next five years while Viacom18 has got the digital rights. The combined per match value only from Indian TV and digital rights per game is 107.5 crore. With these bids, monopoly of one broadcaster in IPL ends."

These deals will oversee a total of 410 matches over five years, from 2023 to 2027. Package A puts the value of every match at 57.5 crores, while the per match amount from Package B is set at 50 crores.

The second day of the auction saw a bid of Rs 20,000 crores for Package C, including non-exclusive matches for the Indian sub-continent region only.

"The bidding stopped at 6 pm today and we are currently auctioning off package C, which has 98 games for five years in non-exclusive digital category. There are 18 in first two seasons followed by 20 in next two and 24 in the final season. It will be followed by package D, which is overseas rights for TV and digital," the official added.

Talking about proceedings on Day one of the e-auction, he explained, "The base price for TV was Rs 49 crore while digital rights were pegged at Rs 33 crore. "We are already reaching towards USD 5.5 billion mark after selling two packages. But digital rights per match value touching Rs 50 crore is massive. An incremental growth of 51 percent over and above base price is phenomenal,"

Day three of the e-auction is in the process.

The Zee group, headed by former BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, is expected to bid intensely.