The BCCI’s invitation to tender (ITT) for home internationals and domestic matches (for April 2018-March 2023) has set a base price or Per Match Value (PMV) of ₹33 crore for Global Television Rights plus Rest of the World Digital Rights Package (GTVRD), ₹7 crore for the Indian Subcontinent Digital Rights Package (ID) and ₹40 crore for the Global Consolidated Rights Package (GCR). The bid increment band has been fixed ₹50 lakh each for GTVRD and GCR and ₹12 lakh for ID.
The eligible parties would have to bid for matches for each of the five years. It’s 21 games in 2018-19, 23 in 2019-20, 14 in 2020-21, 23 in 2021-22 and 21 in 2022-23, adding up to 102 internationals.
The e-auction will be held on a website created for the ‘auction engine’ by e-commerce company Mjunction. The trailblazing e-auction has been put off from March 27 to April 3. The reason for the postponement is, sources revealed, that there has been queries from prospective bidders for the digital rights and the BCCI decided to give them more time to understand the whole process. A workshop for the online auction process was conducted here on March 7.
India’s leading sports broadcasters have had serious misgivings about shelling out ₹43 crore for each of the home Test matches, ODIs and T20Is that Star India paid in the last four years. But an industry expert told The Hindu: “The combination of the first two packages and the consolidated package is ₹40 crore. This was the average money the BCCI received in the last six years for each match because, after the termination of Nimbus, Star paid only around ₹34 crore for an international match in the first two years and ₹43 crore in the last four years.”
The classification of 102 internationals during 2018 April-2019 March is 22 Test matches, 45 ODIs and 35 T20Is. Clearly, the focus will be on the shorter version of the game and this would appeal to most of the bidders.
“Six years ago, no one was there to bid for the digital rights, which actually will drive the auction on April 3. Star India and Sony Pictures Network (SPN) India bid for the IPL television rights, but Facebook, Reliance Jio, Airtel, Star and Times Internet will vie for the Indian Subcontinent digital rights. Facebook’s bid was the highest at ₹3,900 crore, Airtel at ₹3,280 crore and Jio at ₹3,075 crore.
Whatever may be the outcome on April 3, the BCCI will be assured of netting in excess of ₹4,000 crore revenue from the home internationals media rights for five years.
