DisneyStar won the television broadcast rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) while the digital rights went to Viacom18, said people with knowledge of the matter, on the 2nd day of auctions.

Viacom18 is the new online home of Indian Premier League cricket for the next five years, while Disney’s Star India will remain the sports broadcaster on TV.

Fast-growing Viacom18, a joint venture between Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, Paramount Global and Bodhi Tree Systems, the investment company backed by James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, will get an overnight surge in Indian video subscribers as soon as the next IPL season begins. But the firm paid heftily for the privilege: $2.6 billion (205 billion rupees) for the digital rights to the league on the Indian subcontinent for 2023-2027

DisneyStar won the television broadcast rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) while the digital rights went to Viacom18, said people with knowledge of the matter, on the second day of auctions. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) mopped up a total Rs 44,075 crore for the rights over the next five years, they said. The board will make an official announcement after completing auctions of all four rights packages.

Senior executives with direct knowledge of developments said that the TV rights for India, or package A, was won by DisneyStar for Rs 57.5 crore per match, or a total Rs 23,575 crore for 410 matches over five years. Package B–India subcontinent digital rights–went to Reliance Industries-controlled Viacom18 for Rs 50 crore per match, adding up to a total Rs 20,500 crore.Together, the rights have been bought for Rs 107.5 crore per match for the 2023-2027 cycle. The reserve price for TV and digital rights was Rs 49 crore and Rs 33 crore per match, respectively.

This sum is more than twice the Rs 16,347.5 crore that DisneyStar had paid in the last rights auction for a five-year period at Rs 54.5 crore per match. To be sure, that was for 60 matches per year.

Auction for Package C and D

As predicted by experts the auction did not see overaggressive bidding, with just one more bid coming in for TV rights on Day 2, while the digital package didn’t get any new bids Monday and ended at Rs 48 crore per match. Subsequently, the winner of package A, DisneyStar challenged Viacom18 for the digital rights with a counter bid of Rs 49 crore per match. Viacom18 trumped that with a bid of Rs 50 crore.

The auction for package C–nonexclusive India digital rights (18 matches)–started Monday evening and will resume Tuesday at 11 am. On Monday night, the last bid for package C was for Rs 18.75 crore per match, as against the base price of Rs 16 crore, ensuring at least Rs 1,837.50 crore.

Meanwhile, two territories within the rest of the world package (Package D) — territory A, which includes Asia, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean Islands, Israel and New Zealand; and territory D –UK and Europe — were won by Viacom18 for Rs 40 lakh and Rs 50 lakh per match, respectively. These two territories will add Rs 164 crore and Rs 205 crore, respectively, to BCCI’s coffers. Other territories are B (Middle East and North Africa); C (South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa); and E (the USA). The base price for each of the five territories was Rs 30 lakh per match

Sports marketing experts said that the TV advertising rates will have to go up to over Rs 20 lakh per 10 seconds to break even, based on the DisneyStar bid.

“In the last five years, DisneyStar has grown the ad revenues from an average of Rs 7 lakh to Rs 14.5 lakh in the last season, but overall, they may still have made some loss,” an expert said. “Now, it will have to go to over Rs 20 lakh and the distribution revenue will also have to come in to make money.”

As for digital, recovering Rs 50 crore per match may be difficult with advertising and subscription revenues, the person said.