It’s Ambani vs Disney vs Sony as Amazon plans to back out on the eve of IPL broadcast rights auction

• An open bidding war for the broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League is expected to commence on June 12, 2022.
• Media companies will first place their bets for television broadcasting rights on June 12. A day later, digital rights will be available for bidding.
• As per financial advisory firm Elara Capital, media rights could escalate at least by three to four times to ₹500-600 billion.

It’s a showdown between Mukesh Ambani and Disney as Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has reportedly backed out of the IPL broadcasting rights auction even before the first delivery is bowled.

According to a report by Bloomberg, Amazon has decided to throw in the towel and withdraw from the heated bidding race.

Earlier, two of the world’s richest men, Jeff Bezos and Mukesh Ambani were expected to clash on the battlefield once again.

With Bezos out of the picture, odds seem to be in the favour of Ambani’s Reliance. So, the strongest contender for Ambani is Walt Disney Co., which held the rights until this year’s just-concluded season, and Sony Group Corp.

Ambani has already raised nearly $2 billion to take on Disney and Sony

However, Ambani has already started preparing for the war. He has raised ₹13,500 crore from James Murdoch and Uday Shankar’s investment platform, Bodhi Tree Systems to strengthen his bid.

Locking horns with the giant Viacom18 and Disney are Zee, Alphabet and an unnamed company, who have bought the Invitation to Tender (ITT) and will be getting onto the battlefield this weekend.

Half a billion eyeballs and billions of rupees in revenue – why IPL broadcast rights are so hot

The broadcasting rights for India’s most coveted sporting event Indian Premier League, which attracts over 600 million views, will be up for grabs on June 12 for the next cycle 2023-27.

The five-year telecasting and online streaming contracts have attracted several bidders this year. Whoever wins the broadcasting rights, will add a crown jewel to their content pipeline and dominate the streaming market.

According to financial advisory firm Elara Capital, media rights could escalate at least by three to four times to ₹500-600 billion for the next cycle, a growth of three to four times.

“The number of matches is expected to move up towards 94 in the last year of the five year cycle. The first two cycles will have 74 matches, next two years will see 84 matches, which means there will be 84 matches on average per year. So, the number of matches has gone up more than the previous cycle by 40%,” said Karan Taurani, senior VP of Elara Capital.

Star India, the current holders of IPL rights, won the bid for the ongoing term in 2018 for ₹16,300 crore for five years, under the leadership of Uday Shankar.

Prior to Star India, Sony held the broadcast rights for the first ten 10 seasons of IPL, from 2008 to 2017, with the contract valued at $1.03 billion. It might seem like a steal compared to Star India’s bid for 2018-2022, and more so, compared to the base price for the 2023-2027 term.