The seesaw battle for IPL media rights continues 

The battle for the media rights of the marquee Indian Premier League (IPL) is still awaiting the final announcement from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The two big deals – the buyout of television broadcasting and digital rights for a five-year period – were concluded yesterday for a cumulative amount of Rs 44,075 crore. 

Of this, television is worth Rs 23,575 crore and digital’s share being Rs 20,500 crore. Media reports suggest Disney Star has won the former while the digital piece has gone to Viacom18; both the rights are currently with Disney Star who won it for the 2018-22 period. 

When combined with two other categories could take the total bidding amount to over Rs 47,000 crore, compared to Rs 16,348 crore that then Star India (since then Disney bought over Star’s business globally) paid earlier or an increase of over 2.8x. 

A formal announcement on the names of the winners is expected to be made today. At the current acquisition costs, advertising rates will need to increase by at least 2.5x for the winner to recover his costs – a spot buy at this year’s IPL was around Rs 15 lakh for a 10 second spot and at these acquisition prices, it could exceed Rs 35 lakh. By any stretch, this makes the IPL an even more expensive proposition way ahead of the cricket world cups.     

The addition of two new teams, along with increased viewer interest, has led to more advertisers coming on board for the IPL. 

The first edition was held in 2008 and Sony won the bid for the first decade, for which it paid Rs 8,200 crore. Costs, be it for acquisition or advertising, have only increased since then. The profile of advertisers over time has also changed with a whole host of unicorns and new age companies are now accounting for a substantial proportion.