A little more than 20 companies have bought the Invitation To Tender (ITT) for the high profile media rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the submissions for which have now been scheduled for September 1.
The submissions, earlier scheduled to take place on Aug 28, had to be postponed by four days because of matters related to taxation and impending bank holidays. In the first round of clarifications on the ITT sent out last Friday, the BCCI had informed potential bidders about the same.
The list of those who have picked up the ITT will be submitted to the Supreme Court on Tuesday when the petition submitted by MP Subramanian Swamy asking for an e-auction to ensure transparency will come up for hearing.
Chief Justice Dipak Misra, who is also hearing the matter concerning the BCCI in its longstanding legal tussle with the Cricket Association of Bihar, will hear Swamy’s petition.
As the fraternity waits for the Supreme Court to show the way forward, TOI has learned that Star India Pvt Ltd, Sony Pictures Networks India Pvt Ltd, AmazonSeller Services Pvt Ltd and Reliance Jio Digital lead a list of 20-odd companies that have picked up the ITT, with another internet giant Yahoo joining the race.
Others include Follow on Interactive Media, Times Internet Ltd, Gulf DTH, SuperSport International, GroupM Media India, Bein IP, Econet Media Group, Sky UK, ESPN Digital Media, BTG Legal Service, BT Sport, Twitter, Facebook, Discovery , Airtel and DAZN Perform Group.
While it certainly happens to be an attractive line-up, the fact that BCCI has kept all options open in terms of inviting the bids a consolidated bid, breakdown of bids and both it remains to be seen if it will be a level-playing field.
Those with an industry perspective say a consolidated bid will not allow market-specific bidders like Amazon and Yahoo looking to cut the cheque from a digital viewpoint to contest on equal footing because the option of a consolidated bid heavily tilts the game in favour of the television broadcaster.
While the cricket board’s logic is that keeping all options open allows it to look at revenue maximization, industry experts say the digital market is clearly a far bigger and a more dynamic industry going further, which BCCI is unwilling to explore keeping broadcaster interests in mind.
“A separate bid for digital will force the rights-owner to do a deferred live of matches whereas if one party owns digital and broadcast both, then there’s no restriction. Where’s the logic in this?
Why not have a paywall instead? This is like suppressing a market that hasn’t even woken up yet,” says an industry executive.
