Document picture of Indian cricket crew© AFP
Viacom 18 on Thursday created a similar monopoly in Indian cricket broadcasting sphere by means of bagging each TV and virtual rights of the nationwide crew’s house order for the upcoming 5 years with a cumulative bid of roughly Rs 6000 crore, beating Celebrity Bharat and Sony in a three-way struggle. The BCCI had invited isolated e-bids for each symmetrical (TV) and virtual for very best value discovery. “Viacom 18 paid Rs 3101 crore (approximately) for digital and Rs 2862 crore for linear (TV). As has been the trend, digital has fetched more. “With IPL virtual rights being purchased by means of Viacom for Rs 26,000 crore plus, they now have virtually all of the top profile cricket homes save IPL symmetrical (TV) and ICC occasions,” a broadcasting industry source, tracking developments closely, told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
The rights will come into effect with India’s three-match home series against Australia beginning September 22 and end on March 31, 2028.
“Congratulations @viacom18 for successful the @BCCI Media Rights for each symmetrical and virtual for the upcoming 5 years. Bharat Cricket will keep growing in each areas as next @IPL and @wplt20, we prolong the partnership @BCCI Media Rights as smartly,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah said on ‘X’, formerly twitter.
India will be playing 88 international games across three formats including 25 Tests, 27 ODIs and 36 T20Is with per match value of the deal standing around Rs 67.76 crore. This is nearly Rs 7.76 crore more than last cycle’s Rs 60 crore per match value.
However BCCI is getting Rs 175 crore less than Rs 6138 crore it received during last cycle which had more games, specifically 102. If one looks at the prevailing market sentiments , it is not a bad price to fetch as the per match valuation has increased. One needs to factor in that only marquee Test matches and series versus England and Australia will fetch a decent advertisement revenue. For matches against other nations, it is only the T20 which is the cash cow.
India will play Australia in 21 games and will be pitted against England in 18 matches across three formats during the next five years.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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