Six companies, including Star India, Sony Pictures Networks, and Reliance Jio, will bid for the media rights for India’s bilateral cricket series at home for the next five years in the first ever e-auction organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Tuesday.

Digital giants Facebook and Google, and over-the-top content provider Yupp TV, are the other companies that have bought the bid document for Indian cricket’s media rights from April 2018 to March 2023.

India are scheduled to play 102 matches – 22 Tests, 42 One-Day Internationals and 38 Twenty20 Internationals – at home in the next five-year cycle. The BCCI is selling media rights for three specific categories: Global TV rights plus Rest of World digital rights; Indian sub-continent digital rights; and a global consolidated rights package (TV plus digital).

For the 2018-’19 season, the base prices for the three categories are as follows: Rs 35 crore per match for the global TV and Rest of World digital rights, Rs 8 crore per match for Indian sub-continent digital rights, and Rs 43 crore per match for global consolidated rights. After this period, from 2019-2023, the base prices per match are Rs 33 crore, Rs 7 crore Rs 40 crore respectively.

What is an e-auction?

The bidders, during the e-auction process, will be able to see every offer live online. They, however, will not be able to establish the identity of the bidders. The bidders will only be revealed after the bid process is over.

The bidding process will be a marked departure from the BCCI’s conventional closed-bid auction model, where bids could be submitted only once in sealed envelopes. The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators felt that an e-auction is more transparent in terms of competitive price discovery.

The e-auction will allow the participants to see each other’s offers and file incremental bids (with fixed slabs) after each round until competitors pull out of the race. The minimum amounts for incremental bids are Rs 25 crore for the consolidated rights, Rs 20 crore for the global TV plus rest of world digital rights, and Rs 5 crore for the Indian subcontinent digital rights.

Star India, which held the Indian cricket rights for the last five years, had bought the global consolidated rights for the Indian Premier League for Rs 16,347.50 crore last year. Sony, which had the IPL rights from 2008 to 2017, then went ahead and bought the rights for England and Australian cricket, taking their tally to seven international cricket boards.

If Sony manages to bag the Indian cricket rights, they will pretty much have all international cricket in their kitty, except for ICC tournaments and series played in Bangladesh and New Zealand.

“It will be interesting how desperate Star will be now that they have acquired IPL media rights,” PTI quoted a senior BCCI official as saying. “Sony, on the other hand, will be more desperate for the India rights as Indian team’s media rights are important for any broadcaster’s survival. Jio can be the dark horse as winning even the TV Rights will announce their big-time arrival in broadcast market.”

Don’t count the digital giants out

Facebook had bid a whopping Rs 3,900 crore for IPL’s digital rights, but lost out to Star India’s consolidated bid. The American company can be expected to put in a strong bid again for the Indian cricket team’s digital rights.

Facebook recently signed a deal with Major League Baseball to stream 25 matches worldwide on its website during the 2018 season. According to Bloomberg, the deal was worth $30 million to $35 million (Rs 195 crore to Rs 227 crore). In the first six months of 2017, there were 3,500 live sports broadcasts on Facebook, according to Variety.

Google has signed several sports deals – streaming and otherwise – for its YouTube TV service in recent months. YouTube TV will be the presenting sponsor for the NBA Finals and the World Series. The company also signed exclusive streaming deals with two Major League Soccer teams, the Los Angeles Football Club and Seattle Sounders FC.

Yupp TV recently picked up the IPL digital and television rights from Star India for Europe, South America, and South East Asian countries, and non-exclusive rights for Australia for an undisclosed amount, according to the Economic Times.

With inputs from PTI