With the Indian Premier League (IPL) set to witness a broadcasting change post-2022, many new entrants are certain to announce their arrival in the market and aim to acquire the telecasting rights of the cash-rich league for the seasons to come.
While Sony and Walt Disney are already giants in the said industry, Reliance and Amazon are understood to express their desires in fighting for the media rights of the IPL. With the tournament having an unprecedented demand in the market, the cost to gain its telecast rights may shoot up to a record INR 500 billion, reported Reuters.
"Cricket is the second-biggest sport in the world with two-and-a-half billion fans and IPL is like its Super Bowl. If you're not there, you do not exist," head of Parimatch, Anton Rublievskyi quoted.
While at first Sony and Zee's merger seemed to have sealed the deal, the latest arrivals of Reliance and Amazon have upped the competition. The present holder of IPL's television and digital rights Disney-owned Star India are currently running behind in the race as their fierce competitors have pockets filled with a whopping sum of money.
Notably, Reliance is raising $1.6 billion to invest in its broadcasting venture Viacom18. The deal holds importance and will decide the way IPL media rights are heading to.
"Winning this bid is critical to Reliance's long-term plans for its Jio platform and its digital expansion. Everything that has happened at Viacom18 in the last few months, like buying rights to the Spanish La Liga and setting up a sports channel, has been building up to this," a source close to the company said as recited to Reuters.
Amazon's Prime Video has started live streaming cricket matches. They are also interested in putting the IPL matches under their base but the lack of a TV channel makes their case a bit shaky.
With the rise in the cost of rights, industry experts have been pointing towards its sustainability and lack of profit to the company.
"The IPL has got to a stage where it's now too big to fail and therefore everyone who is part of the ecosystem is propping it up," advertising expert Meenakshi Menon stated.
Meanwhile, the BCCI secretary Jay Shah informed Reuters that the board aims to derive the right value for the IPL.
"We will do our best to derive the right value a tournament like the IPL deserves," Jay Shah mentioned.