After IPL, Viacom18 bags BCCI’s 2023-28 bilateral cricket rights as well

Reliance Industries-backed media business Viacom18 bagged the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) TV and digital rights for Team India’s bilateral cricket matches across T20, ODI and Test formats for the 2023-28 cycle on Thursday, completing a trifecta of cricket rights of men’s Indian Premier League, women’s IPL as well as the country’s bilateral matches.    

In a tweet on Thursday evening, BCCI Secretary Jay Shah said: “Congratulations Viacom18 for winning the BCCI Media Rights for both linear and digital for the next 5 years. India Cricket will continue to grow in both spaces as after IPL and WPLT20, we extend the partnership BCCI Media Rights as well. Together we will continue to capture the imagination of (Indian) cricket fans.” 

Sports18 will telecast the matches, international and domestic on TV, while it will be live streamed on JioCinema as OTT (over the top) platform. 

While the sum has it has been sold for has not been revealed yet, it is widely expected to be a repeat of what was seen during auction of the broadcasting rights of marquee cricket property Indian Premier League in June 2022. The IPL auction saw the digital rights of the matches getting sold for a higher price than TV rights for the first time, indicating the changing viewing preferences of the audience base.  

In June 2022, BCCI sold the IPL broadcasting rights for a whopping Rs 48,390 crore. For the first time, it split the rights into digital and TV packages for the 2023-27 cycle. Disney Star won India TV rights for a bid of Rs 23,575 crore and Reliance-backed Viacom18 (which owns JioCinema app) bagged digital rights for Rs 23,758 crore.  Before that, TV and digital IPL rights were a bundled deal which was held by Star India (now renamed as Disney Star after the merger of the two media giants) and its streaming app Disney+ Hotstar.   

BCCI sold the IPL rights for Rs 16,347 crore for five years in 2017. In 2022, the rights were sold for another five years at Rs 48,390 crore, at triple the value. The bilateral cricket media rights were sold for Rs 6,193 crore in 2018. The current cycle’s rates will highlight how much impact cricket IPL’s soaring popularity has had on the valuation of other cricket formats of T20I, ODI and Test matches.  

For Viacom 18, which has reportedly beaten Disney Star and Sony Sports to bag the bilateral rights, it is another tool in its arsenal to attract viewers as it scales up its digital platform JioCinema. Viacom18 acquired the cricket IPL digital rights for the 2023-27 seasons for Rs 23,758 crore. It streamed the 2023 edition of cricket IPL for free for all JioCinema app users across telecom networks to get more viewers to its platform before it could start charging them. In his recent speech at Reliance Industries’ AGM on August 28, Chairman Mukesh Ambani said 45 crore viewers tuned into the platform to watch IPL.  

Just as the IPL 2023 season ended in May 2023, JioCinema, forayed into original content with the media and content arm of Reliance Industries, Jio Studios, announcing more than 100 movies, original web series and mini-series – many of which were meant exclusively for the OTT platform.  

It has also struck original content partnerships with HBO and NBCUniversal to bring their films and TV shows to India, and rolled out a premium pricing plan for Rs 999 a year which gives access to premium Hollywood content on up to four devices, though live sports and local language entertainment are free.