After much huffing and puffing, notwithstanding issues of lack of transparency, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has awarded the media rights to the incumbent, Disney Star. This will be for four years – 2024-2027 – and is a marked difference from the earlier bid. For one, that was for eight years that Disney Star (then called Star India before a global buyout by Disney) was acquired in late 2014 for $2 billion (then Rs 12,000 crore). Though no official numbers have not been declared on the most recent bid, it is broadly expected to be higher than the $1.44 billion (over Rs 11,500 crore) benchmark that the ICC has put down. Taking the earlier eight-year bid at $1 billion, the current deal (for half the period) is at least 44 per cent up in dollar terms or 92 per cent in rupee terms.
Also Read: Disney Star wins broadcasting rights of all ICC events from 2024 to 2027 in India
The ICC rights encompass the World Cup, T20 World Cup, and the Champions Trophy, with these three major tournaments being the big attractions apart from women's cricket. Taking a leaf out of the IPL bid, the tack this time has been to split the rights: in all, there are six packages across television and digital. Industry trackers say it is not surprising given the kind of money that went into the IPL media rights. Earlier this year, the media rights for the IPL, across formats, were picked up for a whopping Rs 48,390 crore or about 3x over the earlier bid. There Viacom18 clinched the rights for digital, while that of television broadcasting went to Disney Star. In that context, the aggression displayed by Disney Star to win the ICC rights has been on the expected lines. "The loss of IPL digital rights is a huge setback to Hotstar and they needed to win the ICC bid to retain some part of the subscriber base," says one media planner. The current ICC bid, apart from Disney Star, saw Viacom18, Zee and Sony too participating.
However, Disney Star's winning bid is not without its set of challenges. According to Madan Mohapatra, an independent marketing and media consultant, the difference between the IPL and ICC is that the latter is characterised by "being high-risk, high-return." To him, "one's fortune gets linked to that of team India's in the case of ICC." Citing the case of 2007, he explains "it was an interesting year, where India won the T20 World Cup but could not go beyond the group stage in the ODI World Cup." As expected, audience interest dropped significantly and it "severely affected the return on investment for both advertisers and broadcasters."