IPL media rights: Bidders get 10 more days

The board said Thursday that it has extended the date for purchasing the invitation to tender (ITT) documents till May 20 from May 10.

“The BCCI received some queries and interest in the rights from some big industrialists as well as some global companies owning media assets. As they were still making up their mind and the board wants to expand the pool of bidders, it has decided to extend the date by 10 days,” said a person with knowledge of the matter.

Top Indian broadcasters as well as global tech giants have picked up the tender documents, he said.

They include rights holder Disney Star, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN), Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE) and Viacom18/Reliance, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Among tech companies, Amazon, Alphabet Inc (Google), Dream Sports (Dream11/Fancode) and Times Internet are learned to have bought the documents. They couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The one-time, non-refundable fee for the ITT documents is ₹25 lakh plus goods and services tax (GST) of ₹4.5 lakh.

For overseas companies, the documents cost $33,000.

Aggressive Reserve Price

ET reported on March 30 that the BCCI had set an aggressive reserve price for the auction, almost doubling last time’s winning composite bid of ₹16,347.5 crore.

While there is no option for a composite bid this time, the reserve price for TV rights for the Indian subcontinent has been set at ₹49 crore per match, totalling ₹18,130 crore for five years. For package B, the digital rights for the Indian subcontinent, the reserve price per match is ₹33 crore or ₹12,210 crore for five years.

The board has also carved out a third bundle of non-exclusive digital rights of 18 games – opening, four playoffs and 13 evening matches over weekends. The base price for this is ₹16 crore per match, totalling ₹1,440 crore for the five-year rights. The base price for the rest of the world package has been kept at ₹3 crore per match or ₹1,110 crore for five years. At the base price, the BCCI will get ₹32,890 crore from selling the media rights.