BCCI to earn INR 55 crores from IPL; more than India matches

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is set to earn a whopping INR 55 crores from Indian Premier League (IPL)’s upcoming seasons. On the other hand, the most astonishing fact is that the board will add INR 43 crores from India‘s international matches. So does it mean IPL has more worth than the international matches? In addition, the board will also increase their wealth by INR 23.3 lakhs from every ball bowled in IPL. All this is based on Star India’s breathing take deal of INR 16,435 crores for IPL media rights for the next five seasons. The auctions took place on Monday.

After such a massive deal, India’s T20 league is now clubbed between English Premier League (EPL) and NBA (National Basketball Association) in terms of highest grossing football leagues in the world. Earlier, Sony had bought the IPL media rights from 2009 to the last season for INR 10,436 crores. This comes down to approximately 1,160 crores per year. Nonetheless with Star’s deal, the amount will square upto around 182 per cent hike for BCCI; or nearly thrice the amount from their previous earnings.

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“Even if it was slightly less, we would not have got the rights. That should tell you this is the right figure. When one person or one company bids very highly, you can ask that question. But in every category, it has been so competitive. There are three digital rights that have gone for more than 3,000 crores. Digital did not even exist 10 years ago. In television, it was very aggressively tendered too, and equally for rest of the world,” Star CEO Uday Shankar told according to Indian Express. While they are the IPL’s sole media rights holders for the next five years, Star’s five-year rights over all cricket on Indian soil ends on March 30, 2018 following which the BCCI will hold a fresh auction. And Shankar wasn’t keen on revealing his cards six months out.

“You have seen how fierce and competitive the BCCI cricket rights are. If this is where we are with the IPL rights, then you can imagine the level of competitiveness that can happen in the next set of rights. It would be foolhardy on my part to make any comment on that. We have a lot of cricket now between the IPL and ICC events and I think we can run a very good business with that,” Shankar added.