ICC to keep using sealed bids for Media Rights Tender

On June 20 (Monday), the International Cricket Council (ICC) released its first Invitation To Tender (ITT) for media rights for the next cycle. 

However, the board have confirmed that they will not be engaging in an e-auction. The BCCI opted for an e-auction recently for the IPL 2023-27 media rights due to the complexity of its media rights. 

The ICC Chief Commercial Officer has revealed that the board will be using the tried and tested methodology of inviting sealed bids in an envelope as they have done in the past.

The ICC media rights tender will allow composite bids for TV and digital rights, unlike the IPL, where the rights were divided into different packages this year. 

"It would be wrong to say there is no transparency," said Anurag Dahiya, ICC's chief commercial officer, on Tuesday (June 21). "We are not using the e-auction clearly because we have a complicated set of rights available. We are inviting sealed bids, a methodology we employed in the past. It is not a straightforward single territory and single package of rights. We have different combinations."

The interested parties can bid for 16 Men's events (over eight years) and six Women's events (over four years), comprising approximately 362 and 103 matches, respectively. 

Allardice announced that the women's package would last four years, and the host nations for the tournaments will be announced in July.

"The women's package is available is for four years, and we are looking to announce the host nations in July during the annual conference, in a month," Allardice said, adding, "The unbundling of women's rights is a natural progression because of the emergence of events. It has gained in profile."

Women's ICC events like T20 World Cup in 2024, U19 T20 World Cup in 2025, 50-over World Cup in 2025, T20 World Cup in 2026 June, U19 T20 World Cup in 2027 January and the T20 Champions Trophy in 2027 will be covered in these media rights. 

The media rights for the Men's events will consist of the tenders of the 2024, 26, 28, and 30 editions of the T20 World Cup and 2027 and 2031 editions of the ODI World Cup.

Also, 2025, 27, 29, and 31 editions of the World Test Championship and four Under 19 World Cups in 2024, 26, 28, and 30 will be part of these media rights. 

The board further added that the sale of the rights for core regions would be completed by the end of this year. 

"We will go to the UK, US, SA, and then Australia-New Zealand. After that, we will approach the other territories like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Middle East, and so on and so forth later. These markets don't like doing business way in advance," said Sunil Manoharan, ICC vice president - media rights. 

"Our philosophy has been to have direct contact with the broadcasters who have been servicing our fans. To achieve that, we thought it is the best way to go territory by territory."

ICC are yet to fix the base price for these rights, unlike the IPL. August 22 has been chosen as the date for submitting the bids. In the first week of September, the names of the successful bidders will be announced.