Arun TV: Viacom18 Bags Indian Cricket Digital and TV Media Rights for Nearly Rs. 6,000 Crore

Viacom18 on Thursday created a near monopoly in Indian cricket broadcasting sphere by bagging both TV and digital rights of the national team's home series for the next five years with a cumulative bid of approximately Rs. 6000 crore, beating Star India and Sony in a three-way battle.

The BCCI had invited separate e-bids for both linear (TV) and digital for best price discovery.

"Viacom18 paid Rs. 3101 crore (approximately) for digital and Rs. 2862 crore for linear (TV). As has been the trend, digital has fetched more in Rs. 5963 crore (approximately) deal.

"With IPL digital rights being bought by Viacom for Rs. 26,000 crore plus, they now have almost all the high profile cricket properties save IPL linear (TV) and ICC events," a broadcasting industry source, tracking developments closely, told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

The rights will come into effect with India's three-match home series against Australia beginning September 22 and end on March 31, 2028.

India will be playing 88 international games across three formats including 25 Tests, 27 ODIs and 36 T20Is with per match value of the deal standing around Rs. 67.76 crore. This is nearly Rs. 7.76 crore more than last cycle's Rs. 60 crore per match value.

However, the BCCI is getting Rs. 175 crore less than Rs. 6138 crore it received during last cycle which had more games, specifically 102. If one looks at the prevailing market sentiments , it is not a bad price to fetch as the per match valuation has increased. One needs to factor in that only marquee Test matches and series versus England and Australia will fetch a decent advertisement revenue. For matches against other nations, it is only the T20 which is the cash cow.

India will play Australia in 21 games and will be pitted against England in 18 matches across three formats during the next five years.

The BCCI fell way short of the billion dollar mark (at least by Rs. 2300 crore) and one of the reasons forthat could be the declining popularity of the ODI format and there are 27 of them in the next cycle.

"One day bilateral series save World Cup year should be done away with as it doesn't bring requisite revenues. With so many T20 leagues also happening around the world, the viewers' fatigue should also be taken into account," a broadcasting industry veteran said.

He also provided an interesting take on how the potential bidders do their mathematics and arrive at a particular figure.

"In case of 25 Tests, you have 15 Tests against England and Australia at home. The kind of pitches that is being prepared for Test matches in India, the broadcaster has literally no chance on most of the occasions to commercially exploit the fifth day unless there is a flat deck.

"At times games finish during first session of fourth day. Just calculate how many potential seconds of ad revenue you can lose," he explained.

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