Day 2: Bids for IPL Media Rights for TV and digital closed at Rs 44,075 crore

The second day of the media rights auction for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the next cycle of 2023-27, concluded at Rs 45,775 crore. As per media reports, Viacom18 has won the digital rights at Rs 50 crore per match. Speculations suggest that Disney Star or Sony has won the television rights.

The winner of category A challenged the winner of category B at an incremental bid of Rs 1 crore. However, the bids closed with two different winners.

The bid for category A (linear TV rights) concluded at Rs 23,575 crore (Rs 57.5 crore per match). The bid for category B (digital rights) had initially concluded at Rs 19,680 crore (Rs 48 crore per match). However after the winner of category A challenged for category B it went up to Rs 20,500 crore (Rs 50 crore per match).

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had set the reserve price for the media rights at Rs 32,890 crore (Rs 89 crore per match for a total of 370 matches). When the auction concluded on Sunday at 6 pm the bids had reached Rs 43,050 crore. It resumed on Monday at 11 am and within an hour the auction closed. The bidding for category C is set to begin at 1 pm followed by the bid for category D.

The IPL media rights have been split into four categories - TV rights for the Indian subcontinent (category A), digital rights for the Indian subcontinent (category B), special matches (category C), and Rest of the World (RoW) rights (category D).

The key bidders are Viacom18, Disney Star, Sony Pictures Networks India, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL). Amazon got out of the race after it did not participate in the technical bid valuation on June 10.

This is a developing story.