ICC Champions Trophy 2025 faces broadcast blackout as Star India release accusations

Star India has disclosed a big loss of INR 12,548 crore for the financial year ending March 2024. The broadcaster has reportedly blamed the weak financial performance on a provision of INR 12,319 crore for an "onerous contract" from the media rights deal from the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Star is currently the official broadcaster of all the ICC events, including next year's Champions Trophy, which will be played in February-March and will be hosted by Pakistan. But the recent news is not good news for the ICC as they face more challenges towards hosting the Champions Trophy.

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Star India faces a net loss of INR 12,548 crore

Star India, which is an arm of Walt Disney, is currently reportedly about to merge with Viacom18, which receives backing from Reliance.

“The company has estimated the contract with ICC to be onerous as the expected revenue from customers relating to this right as and when the related event is broadcasted/streamed is likely to be less than the cost involved in broadcasting and streaming these events and hence has estimated a loss from future events relating to these media rights to be ₹12,319.31 crore as of 31 March 2024," Star stated.

For the first quarter, during April-June 2023, Star India posted revenues worth $279 million as compared to $277 million a year ago. It had losses worth $314 million against $216 million. The company also mentioned that the losses at Star India were because of the higher production costs involved in the ICC T20 World Cup 2024, held in the West Indies and the USA.

It had posted a profit of INR 1,465 crore last year. The broadcaster had asked for a renegotiation on the $3 billion media rights deal for 2024-37 with the ICC in August 2024.

Star India's alliance with Zee

Star India had ended its alliance with Zee Entertainment in July 2024 for the $1.5 billion ICC TV rights. However, they filed an arbitration case against Zee for its incompetence abide by the rules and regulations. and had demanded the claims worth $940 million for the termination of the deal.

According to the deal, Star was to sub-license TV rights for matches conducted by the ICC till the year 2027 ODI World Cup. It is to be noted that Zee missed an important payment of $203.56 million in December 2023, due to which Star had to make a claim for breach of conduct.

The Essel group firm refused to carry forward the TV rights deal with Star India as Sony terminated a $10 billion agreement of merging with Zee Media. This led to the Star filing arbitration cases against Zee at the London Court of International Arbitration.

Not good signs ICC Champions Trophy 2025

The next ICC tournament is the Champions Trophy, which is less than 100 days away. However, the broadcaster's loss is a big blow to the ICC. The tournament is already in danger because of the stand-off between India and Pakistan.

The BCCI has confirmed that India won't travel for the tournament and wants it to be hosted in a hybrid model. On the other hand, Pakistan is committed to hosting the whole eight-nation tournament in their country.