IPL Broadcast Rights Auction 2022

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Homegrown Viacom18 has bagged the rights to broadcast the Indian Premier League matches from 2023 to 2027. This should be seen as the Reliance Group’s foray into the Sports broadcasting industry. The significance of this venture apart from IPL being the second largest sports events (in case you’re wondering, its bigger than the EPL!) in the world, relates to the fact that the winning bid for the rights has risen exponentially. Here are the numbers: The 2017 rights (All broadcasting rights) were sold to Disney Star for Rs. 16,347.5 Cr. In 2022, these rights were split up as TV and Digital and were sold for Rs. 23,575 to Disney star and for Rs. 20,500 Cr to Viacom18 respectively.

The growth has been nothing short of astronomical. For perspective, these rights were sold for Rs. 8,200 Cr for 10 years, that is Rs.820 Cr per year!
















The four broadcast packages:

·        Package A: TV Rights for the Indian Sub-continent

·        Package B: Digital Rights for the Indian Sub-continent.

·        Package C: Non-Exclusive digital broadcast package (sold to Disney Star)

·        Package D: Overseas TV and Digital Rights (bagged by Times Internet)

With the although trivial drop in viewership and the other major players like Sony and even the mighty Amazon stepping away from this mammoth of an investment, there certainly seems to be something other than numbers at play here. As the Reliance Group has been pouring more and more money into the sports industry in general, the rationale behind the decision to obtain the broadcast rights of the seemingly saturated and slightly unattractive IPL paying such a colossal amount of money seems to be to become the single largest sports broadcaster in the subcontinent.

Another interesting aspect to note hear is that, Viacom18 had launched its sports exclusive TV Channel- Sports18 in Apr’22. Yet, they didn’t chase the TV rights for the IPL. Experts at moneycontrol.com argue that there is some optimism to be seen in the OTT space. This clearly seems to accentuate the fact that a large chunk of TV viewership is floating away to the digital space.

There is no debate on the popularity of the game, but is this really a worthy investment? Well now atleast the retail investors like you and me have some scope for making a bet here. Unlike before when the entire IPL market was dominated by foreign players, Indian investors can now bet on an Indian media company.

I was motivated to research and write about this after listening to a Podcast in Finshots podcasts. If you’re not a listener already, do check it out!

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