IPL is one of the biggest advertising properties in India on television, and more recently on digital
Star India won the five-year contract of media rights to the most coveted properties in the country – the Indian Premier League (IPL) – for Rs 16,347.5 crore ($2.55 billion).
It beat Sony Pictures Networks, which held the IPL rights till 2017 for the last 10 years (since IPL’s inception), which had made a bid Rs 11,134.50 crore, according to data released by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
While Sony made the highest bid for the TV rights for the Indian subcontinent with an amount of Rs 11,050 crore, Star India’s overall bid for the TV, digital and the global rights outweighed Sony’s bid.
IPL is one of the biggest advertising properties in India on television, and more recently on digital.
Digital rights for IPL received the maximum competition with five bidders. including Facebook, Airtel, Reliance Jio and Times Internet bidding.
While Facebook bid the highest for the digital rights of IPL with a bid of Rs 3,900 crore, it was not enough to win the rights.
In fact, Star India’s bid for the digital rights was the lowest at Rs 1,443 crore. In comparison, Airtel bid Rs 3,280 crore, followed by Reliance Jio’s bid of Rs 3,075.72 crore and Times Internet’s bid of Rs 1,787.50 crore.
However, while Facebook and the others failed to get rights ,BCCI awarded the media rights television and digital to the highest consolidated bidder. A reason why Star India won the digital rights.
Despite this, Facebook’s bid is significant as it outlines the internet giants strategy in the Indian market.
It has been looking to become a go-to platform for live streaming of sports around the world.
It currently streams UEFA Champions League games on Facebook Live in the US, has deals to stream Major League Soccer matches in the US, MLB games and World Surf League events.
Winning the IPL digital rights would have meant a huge hike in Facebook’s advertising rates in India.
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