Mukesh Ambani’s Viacom18 bags digital rights of IPL, while Star grabs TV rights

• Mukesh Ambani’s media arm Viacom18 has bagged the coveted digital rights of IPL and Disney+ Hostar has acquired television broadcasting rights after an intense bidding war.
• The Indian Premier League which attracts over 600 million views and is the second most valuable sporting property in the world, only behind the NFL.
• BCCI has mopped up over ₹44,075 crore with the broadcast rights auction, nearly tripling IPL’s value over the previous 5-year cycle.

India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani’s Viacom18 has emerged victorious and bagged the digital rights of IPL for the next cycle of 2023-2027. This should get Ambani’s media platform an average of 600 million users every year.

With the Indian Premier League in its kitty, media giant Viacom18 has added a crown jewel to its content pipeline.

On the other hand, Star has won television broadcast rights for ₹23,575 crore, which is a premium of 30% over the base price.

Digital rights have been auctioned for ₹20,500 crore for the next cycle of 2023-2027. With this, IPL’s overall value has now touched ₹43,255 crore (approx. $5.5 billion), which is a jump of 2.5x from what Disney-star shelled out.

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 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.

Jeff Bezos’ Amazon was also one of the contenders for streaming rights. He reportedly backed out of the IPL broadcasting rights auction even before the first delivery was bowled.


IPL is one of world’s most valuable properties

IPL’s per-match value has now touched $13.5 million (approx. ₹105 crore), making it the world’s second most valuable sporting property after the National Football League, which is valued at $17 million.

It is now ahead of the English Premier League (EPL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) at $11 million, and National Basketball Association (NBA) at $2 million, said media reports.

As a report by financial advisory firm Elara Capital, IPL media rights’ revenue CAGR of 10.4% is much higher than other global leagues’ (EPL, NFL, NBA) CAGR of 8% since their inception.

Television vs streaming rights

In a report, Elara Capital had estimated that IPL’s media rights could surge to ₹50,000-60,000 crore for the next cycle, a growth of three to four times.

Explaining why television rights see the highest bids than digital every year, Karan Taurani, senior VP of Elara Capital, said, “Cost per match basis, we believe, the digital segment will come at par with TV at best and don’t see it moving beyond TV as TV still has a lot of large FMCG advertisers and digital, despite strong growth, has concerns on monetisation and subscriptions video on demand (SVOD) – as India is a price-sensitive market with tepid average revenue per user (ARPU).”

Taurani said that in the next cycle, IPL revenue for teams is estimated to grow 2x towards ₹650-750 crore helped by a jump in media rights and an increased number of matches.