Indian Premier League Cricket: Regional TV and Digital Rights Sell for $5 Billion

variety.com:

Indian Premier League cricket tournament, one the world’s richest sporting events, have been sold for a combined $5 billion, according to several reports.The successful bidders have not been named as the auction, which started on Sunday is ongoing and may run to a third day.The TV rights went for $2.72 billion and the digital rights for $2.28 billion, for a five-year deal covering the 2023-2027 tournaments.

In both cases the rights packages are limited to the Indian subcontinent.There are two more rights packages on offer – for selected tournament games including the playoffs, only for the Indian subcontinent; and TV and digital rights for the rest of the world.

The IPL competition has become must-see television in the Indian subcontinent and Middle East, and the winning bid – for local rights alone – was roughly 140% more than the price paid in the previous 2017 licensing round for the 2018-2022 period.

Then Fox’s Star India (now Walt Disney’s Disney+ Hotstar) emerged as the winner having offered $2.55 billion.According to auction rules, the winners of the Indian subcontinent TV rights earns the opportunity to compete for the digital rights against the winner of that category, should it be a different company.Hotstar used the Indian public’s cricket obsession as a massively successful client acquisition tool.