After losing IPL to Star, Sony now looking to focus on International Cricket

BCCI’s cash rich Indian Premier League (IPL) might have ended its 10-year association with Sony with a whopping sum of Rs 16,347.5 crores handed to them by Star India but that didn’t diminish the optimism of the Broadcast giants. Sony is now looking to solely focus on International cricket by bagging the rights from Boards of Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Pakistan.

Sony is also extensively focussed on other sports such as Football, Tennis, Golf and WWE. The next foreign assignment of India (South Africa tour) will also be covered by Sony Entertainment. SPN (Sony Pictures Network), which currently consists 11 sports channels, including Sony ESPN and Sony Six, made the highest bid for the television rights for India at Rs11,050 crore but lost due to the cumulative made by Star for different countries worldwide.

“Nothing changes just because we have lost the bid; we are still focused on cricket, we have five international cricket boards—South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies and Zimbabwe—as part of the network. From a sports perspective, our revenue is safe,” claimed the President of network sales and international business of SPN, Rohit Gupta.

Sony didn’t have the resources to participate in Global Bid

“We did what we believe was the right price. We didn’t participate in the global bid for IPL because we didn’t have the bandwidth and distribution network for the international markets; we played to our strengths which were the India television rights piece. For the global bid we would have to be reliant on other partners,” added Gupta, citing out the reason for not participating in the global bid.

“It really depends on where the games are being played since time zones are crucial here. England and South Africa tend to do well simply because it’s prime time for us. So the South Africa series might bring in stronger revenues for them. However, in terms of revenue, the BCCI matches played by India are a far more lucrative proposition,” quoted the Founding partner of Sportoid Sports Solutions, Harish Krishnamachar, according to Livemint