Kolkata: From having to pay Rs500,000 (Dh28,639) to Doordarshan, India’s state-run broadcaster, in 1992 to earning a mind-boggling Rs163.48 billion (Dh9.37 billion; $2.55 billion) from the sale of IPL rights for five years, the incredulity of the journey is startling for cricket — a sport deemed a religion in India.
While some feel the bid is over-ambitious, having spoken to industry insiders and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), it must be said it is also indicative of a maturing subcontinental marketplace.
It is a global bid which entails rights in India and in the growing Indian diaspora more globally — both television and digital.
The broadcaster can tailor their plans accordingly and shape the look and feel of the property for the next five years.
Investment
“It shows the potential of the game in India and is proof Indian cricket is on the right track. Investors continue to look at cricket as a favoured investment opportunity and that’s a big takeaway for us”, says BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, who is seen by most as the architect of this media rights sale.
“We also expect serious market demand when the India rights come up for renewal next year”, he said.
Two things stand out in the bidding process.
First is the surprise entry of Facebook, a quintessentially American company with no background in cricket, with a whopping Rs39 billion bid for the IPL’s digital rights. This bid is proof of the growing strength of the Indian diaspora across the world.
With more and more Indians calling the US, UK and Europe home, takers for the IPL across these consumer markets has consistently risen.
Connection
The IPL, for many of these non-resident Indians, is the only connection to things Indian.
In a world dominated by information and capital flows and where technology has broken spatial and time barriers, the IPL helps nurture an Indian collective of consumers who continue to celebrate Indianness through the prism of this uniquely Indian export.
Star India, the winners, could conceive of a global bid largely on the strength of this highly influential community. Finally, it explains the BCCI’s decision to segregate the rights across regions in an attempt to maximise revenue from the sale.
Second is the steady growth of the Indian broadcast market. Sony’s bid of Rs110 billion for the Indian TV market is more than double of what they paid earlier this year to telecast the IPL.
It is proof that India, a late entrant in the sports media rights game, has caught up with the leagues of the West.
While open competition over broadcast rights in the US has been the norm for decades now, in Britain the parliament repealed all government control in 1990 — thereby bringing in uninterrupted competition or an ‘open sky’.
Consequently, BBC’s monopoly over the telecast of sports events like Wimbledon and the British Open golf was exposed to competition from ITA, Channel 4 and Sky TV.
Revolution
In India, this finally happened in 1993 when the BCCI sold telecast rights for the India-England series to Trans World International for $600,000 (Dh2.20 million) for the first time in Indian history.
The next two decades has witnessed a revolution.
Doordarshan, which earlier demanded money for cricket broadcast, paid Rs2.4 billion to the BCCI in 2000 and thereafter Nimbus acquired the rights for Indian cricket in 2006 for a massive $612 million, which was subsequently re-negotiated at $549 million.
What does the Star bid mean for world cricket and also for India’s own international fixtures?
While it is premature to predict what the rights for India’s international cricket will fetch the BCCI in 2018, it can be conjectured that it will be less than the IPL in value.
This is because the IPL is a risk-free property where India win every single day.
It eliminates any risk of India losing out like what had happened in the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean — making the IPL a preferred investment option for the broadcaster.
The bid also means that when the ICC’s media rights come up for renewal in 2023, it will have to contend with what the IPL has earned the BCCI in 2022.
Less value than the IPL and it could indicate a decisive win for franchise cricket over international cricket.
Hours before the bids were opened, Lalit Modi, exiled in London and missing the action, had tweeted that five billion for five years is what he wished to see. Ambitious as with all things with the first chairman of the league, this should now be the yardstick for the BCCI.
It is already a five-fold increase in 10 years for the IPL, no wonder it is now in the top five of the world’s most valued sports properties.
— The writer is a sport journalist & scholar based in India
