BCCI Trying To Lure Amazon, Google For Indian Team's Media Rights: Reports

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the richest cricket body in the world, has reportedly been trying to lure global giants Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc. to bid in a media rights auction. The media rights of Team India’s bilateral series for the next five years is currently up for grabs.

In order to make sure that both the global giants remain in contention to acquire the media rights, the BCCI has postponed the starting date of the auction process for the media rights. The BCCI is also reaching out to other firms to bid for the media rights as they look to earn another lucrative contract.

According to a report in Bloomberg, the firms who had recently competed fiercely for the media rights of IPL have not shown much interest. The report stated that the lukewarm response by media firms once again highlights the struggle to earn good money through advertising revenues.

Media firms showing little interest to acquire BCCI’s media rights:

Ernst & Young, under which auctions would have been completed by August end, expect the sale of rights to 102 matches to raise at least $750 million. In 2018, the BCCI had sold their media rights to Star India for Rs 6138.10 crore ($741 million approx.) for five years.

During the same period, the IPL’s growth has been nothing less than meteoric. Last year, the BCCI sold media rights for the IPL for a whopping Rs 48,390 crore for a five-year period. The IPL is one of the biggest sporting brands in the world at the moment.

The IPL media rights were acquired by Viacom 18 Media Ltd., controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, and Walt Disney Co. The report further stated that neither of the two firms has managed to earn good profits so far. While Ambani’s JioCinema put the 2023 edition of IPL online for free, Disney struggled to make profits due to weak advertisement revenues.