The Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket media rights auction witnessed a robust bidding for TV and digital rights for the Indian sub-continent with the valuation of per match of the cash-rich league being earmarked at more than a whopping Rs 100 crore.

The cumulatively bids crossed Rs. 42,000 crore (USD 5.37 billion approximately) on the first day, and still counting.

With the bidding going into the second day, the cumulative valuation of the media rights could well touch a staggering Rs 50,000 crore mark, which will be one of the biggest in terms of global rights across any sport, a PTI report stated.

Four out of the seven players in the fray — Viacom18, Disney-Star, Sony and Zee — were involved in a near seven-hour slugfest that remained inconclusive with Package A (India TV Rights) and Package B (India Digital Rights) cumulatively fetching upwards of 42,000 crore (USD 5.37 billion approximately).

The final result might not be out late on Monday or Tuesday as the battle for Packages A and B will continue on Monday. Once it is over, the winner of package B can challenge for Package C, which has 18 non-exclusive digital rights game for Rs 16 crore ( Rs. 160 million) per game and subsequently package D (Overseas TV and Digital combined rights at Rs 3 crore/Rs. 30 million per game) will come up for bidding.

”As of now after 5.30 pm, the bid for TV has gone up to Rs 57 crore per game from its base price of Rs 49 crore and India digital rights has seen an unbelievable growth from its Rs 33 crore to Rs 48 crore per game,” a senior BCCI functionary told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

”So from per game combined valuation of Rs 54.5 crore from last five-year-cycle, it has already surpassed Rs 100 crore mark (Rs 105+ crore or a shade over Rs. 1 billion). It is unbelievable. It will again start tomorrow,” the BCCI official added.

While it is not known which part were the most aggressive amongst the four bidders, it is expected that the Viacom18, which also boasts of the money power of Reliance Industries and Uday Shankar-James Murdoch consortium, is locked in an intense bidding war with current rights holder Star that’s now part of Disney.

”We were expecting fantastic digital bids and with the fight for group A and B still on, the magic figure of Rs 50,000 crore could well be touched. For Package C and D, one can have a rough estimate that another Rs 5,500 crore would be added if these first two packages stop at Rs. 45,000 crore,” another BCCI official, present in Mumbai, said.

Among the company bigwigs, one of the biggest names in the TV industry, who knows IPL media rights bidding like back of his hand, said: ”The BCCI will laugh its way to the bank but if the media rights value goes beyond Rs 50,000 crore, then it will have its own set of consequences for that kind of aggressive bidding.”

The market watchers are saying that Zee could come hard for Package D as it has already got an overseas dedicated viewership base with its Zee TV serials and now they also have the ZEE5 app.

”With Rs 3 crore as base price, Zee could up their game in that category,” the source added, according to the PTI report.

Commenting on the first day bidding process, Karan Taurani of Elara Caps told Indianbroadcastingworld.com that if the media reports on the biddings were true, then the numbers were “exactly in line with our estimate” as Elara Caps in its recent report on IPL valuations had “expected a 30 percent-35 percent premium over base price for TV and a 80-85 percent premium over base price for digital”.

“We believe per match cost basis , the digital segment will come at par with TV at best and don’t see it moving beyond TV, as TV still has a lot of large FMCG advertisers and digital, despite strong growth, has concerns on monetisation…as india is a price sensitive market with tepid ARPUs.

“We expect the other two bundles (overseas and cluster) too (to) command a premium of almost 40-45 percent over the base price , which means the total value of rights will breach INR 50000 in line with our expectation,” Taurani added.

Lalit Modi, who can be said to be one of the original brains behind the IPL concept when it all started in 2008, has opined the IPL media rights could fetch the BCCI up to USD 10 billion.

“The explosion in the digital space, which we first explored briefly back in 2010, is now a reality. Every life is dictated by the mobile phone and IPL will be no different. Linear TV is still very much the lifeline for an Indian audience. So that is going nowhere. Now add the digital boom and the strength of Linear TV, and we have close to 10 billion dollars,” Modi wrote in his blog.

Modi also couldn’t help crowing a bit about his achievements. “When the veil is lifted on the winner (of rights) next month, please remember who told you first about the value of the rights. Then, I will be ready to raise a toast to the winning party and will doff my hat to the paying public. These two sets of people have helped make my vision durable,” the blogpost said.

Meanwhile,  for a ready reckoner of various IPL media rights packages and base prices, the Indianbroadcastingworld.com earlier report could be accessed here: https://www.indianbroadcastingworld.com/amazon-google-pull-out-of-ipl-rights-bidding-media-reports/