STAR wins BCCI Media rights for Rs 3851 crore

The Rupert Murdoch-owned STAR India has won the BCCI’s Media Rights (covering Television, Internet and Mobile) for global territories, for the period July 2012 – March 2018. STAR India bid Rs 3851 crore for the six-year period for 96 matches. It comes down to an average of around 40 crore per match. Multi Screen Media (Sony) were a close second with a bid of Rs 3700 crore. [caption id=“attachment_263253” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“A company logo of Star TV is seen at its headquarters in Hong Kong. Reuters”]  [/caption] “STAR India would work collabaratively with ESPN-STARSports to exploit the rights”, said Uday Shankar, CEO, STAR India. “Right now, we have three sports channels — Star Sports, ESPN and Star Cricket to broadcast the cricket on. However, if required, we could explore the launch of new channels.” The deal also includes internet rights and domestic cricket. That brings the trouble with Neo Sports to an end for now. IPL rights remain with SONY. There had been speculation that the BCCI would not have got great value out of the deal following India’s disastrous season but all that has been squashed in some style. Star and Multi Screen Media (Sony) were the only two companies to make the bids but a total of five had filed the tenders. “The BCCI is very happy with the deal. Now the media rights have been fully evaluated and fully priced with Star coming out with a such a deal,” BCCI President N Srinivasan said. “Following a transparent process of verifying the eligibility of each bidder, the winner was chosen.” ESPN-Star already have the rights of all ICC events and also the rights of domestic cricket in England and Australia. The BCCI’s marketing committee had set the price for category A games at Rs 31.25 crore per match (approx USD 6.1 million) plus Rs 1 crore (approx USD 0.2 million), while category B games were set at Rs 34 crore (approx USD 6.67 million) plus Rs 1 crore. The board failed in its attempt to sell the internet rights separately last year, as the initial base price of Rs 3 crore and the subsequently reduced price of Rs 2 crore found no takers. The matter has subsequently been referred for arbitration, with the Bombay High Court ruling that Nimbus must deposit Rs 305 crore (approx USD 60 million) with the court as security for the amount the BCCI claims it is owed by the company. Nimbus has also made a counter-claim of Rs 600 crore (approx USD 118 million) from the board. (With inputs from PTI)