IPL: BCCI Thinking for e-auction of All Rights

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is thinking seriously about e-auction of all right although earlier stated that it would hamper its interest from a revenue perspective. Notably, BCCI opposed the e-auction of Indian Premier League’s (IPL) media rights earlier this year in August. BCCI raised that an e-auction process for bidding would harm its interest from the revenue perspective.

The apex body could consider an e-auction process for Indian cricket media rights, the tender for which is expected to be released soon, along with all other properties in the future. The idea behind the move came soon after the media rights auction of the IPL, where the difference between the winning (consolidated) bid of Rs16,347 crore and the second highest (sum of all) bid of Rs 15,080 crore was just 3%.

As per reports in TOI, the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) was recently notified about a meeting between Rahul Johri, BCCI CEO and an e-auction agency which was planning a model for assessing areas in which e-auction may be implemented by the BCCI.

It is also learned CoA head, Vinod Rai, earlier submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court stating that an e-auction would ‘devalue the property.” However, now there has been a change in the mindset of the BCCI official as they have agreed to discuss the process of e-auction.

“The BCCI had submitted back then that going forward it would try and identify – through the IPL auction process – if an e-auction would work. It is working on the same submission. The Indian cricket media rights are going to be sold collectively, unlike the IPL media rights that made for a larger bouquet. But nothing’s finalized yet. The idea is still being deliberated,” a source in the know of things was heard saying.

BCCI’s state bodies will now take up the issue at an appropriate forum in the weeks to come. The members strongly is of the opinion that e-auction of IPL could have only added to the board’s revenues.

“E-auctions ensure greater process control, increased transparency, shorter lead times and generate an extremely competitive price discovery environment resulting in substantial gains for the seller. The e-auction process has also been followed by the government of India for all major auctions,” Subramaniam Swamy stated while talking to TOI.