World sports news:Star Sports India bag BCCI media rights for INR 6138.1 Crore

Star Sports India Pvt Ltd has pipped Reliance Industries Limited and Sony Pictures Networks India to acquire the BCCI media rights, for both television and digital platforms, for a period of five years (2018-2023) with a whopping bid of INR 6138.1 Crores, the Indian cricket board announced on April 5 (Thursday).

The successful e-bid - 59.39 percent more than their winning bid of 2012-18 cycle - allows Star Sports India Pvt Ltd the rights to India's all international and domestic fixtures at home in the five-year period commencing from April 15, 2018 until March 31, 2023.

Six companies initially were in the fray for the television and digital rights spread across three packages, with the latter being split in two categories: Indian sub-continent and Rest of the World (that includes USA, Europe, Middle East and African regions amongst others). The packages of rights on sale were Global Television and Rest of the World Digital Rights (GTVRD), Indian Subcontinent Digital Rights (ID), and the Global Consolidated Rights (GCR)
The e-auction began at 2pm IST on Tuesday (April 3) with only three competitors - Star India Pvt Ltd, Reliance Industries Limited, and Sony Pictures Networks India - left in the race after BCCI's evaluation of technical and financial feasibility. At the end of proceedings on day one, the top bid was INR 4442 Crore for GCR package - 15 per cent in excess of the winning bid of the previous five-year cycle, and escalated to INR 6032.50 Crore - 56.65 per cent hike - by the end of Day 2.

In this five-season cycle, India are scheduled to play 102 international matches across formats (subject to FTP clearance by the ICC). In September 2017, Star India also won the worldwide IPL television and digital rights for the five-year period of 2018-22 with a bid of INR 16,347.5 Crores. Star India's previous record bid, in 2012, was INR 3851 Crores for a total of 96 matches across formats, and included internet as well as mobile rights. Sony, then known as Multi-Screen Media, narrowly missed out with a bid of INR 3700 Crores.

"Like everything else, BCCI rights come a little expensive. But it has been a good experience with BCCI all these years," Star India CEO Uday Shankar said after making the winning bid on Thursday (April 5).

"We are focussing more on consolidated rights. We have always believed in looking at rights as combo offerings. The experience of the auction was great but it was like a movie that it just went on and on. It was good from BCCI's point of view because it got them more revenue."

"I don't think a tender in any sport that has gone for as long. It took time to understand but it was a transparent process. You always knew who the highest bidder in each category was. You had enough time to process and react."

"Both [advertising and subscription] have their own roles. Need to monetize both streams. We are equally focussed on both advertising as well as subscription. There are forms of cricket where advertising works better, there are forms of cricket where subscription works better," Shankar added.

With this winning bid, Star now have the major share of the pie - rights to cricket in India, the Indian Premier League and the ICC tournaments. In addition to that, they also hold the rights for the games played in New Zealand. Sony Pictures Networks India, who were expected to outbid competitors for BCCI media rights after losing IPL to Star, have the rights to cricket played in England, South Africa and Australia, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and West Indies.