Rahul Johri is expecting historic number from IPL media rights auction

The CEO of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Rahul Johri, is expecting a historic day for IPL from its media rights auction on Monday. He believes that the huge interest shown by the various stakeholders could produce numbers never heard of in the history of the cash-rich league. Earlier this week it was also reported that the IPL franchises could also benefit from this auction as BCCI would be sharing 40% of the value with them.

The rights on offer are Indian sub-continental TV rights, which is the most coveted along with emerging Indian subcontinent digital rights. There is also rest of the world media rights on offer which includes key international markets like the Middle East, Africa, Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand.

Johri did not predict the numbers but was hopeful that the bidding process would take place smoothly. “Monday’s auction could produce historic numbers. While I am not in a position to predict numbers, our primary focus is to deliver a transparent and robust bidding process for each and every stakeholder,” he told PTI ahead of the auction.

IPL is the biggest cricketing property

The CEO also thanked Supreme Court and Committee of Administrators (CoA) for having faith in their process and termed IPL as the biggest property globally. “We are extremely grateful to the Honourable Supreme Court and the Committee of Administrators (COA) for having faith in our existing system. The IPL is one of the biggest cricketing property globally. That the best companies in the global market have shown interest is a testimony to the value that it brings in for the investors,” he stated.

He was also excited of the digital rights given the expansion of its market in the recent times. Also, it could see a three-way battle between Reliance Jio, Digital Services, and Airtel. “You have to understand the digital market is growing very rapidly. The increase in bandwidth and connectivity for all the major digital players have also helped. The IPL is a catalyst for the growth of their business,” said Johri.

In the end, he also described the reason to reduce the period of rights from 10 to 5 years. “A period of 10 years was too long a period from a buyer’s perspective as well as seller’s perspective. In an ever changing world, a decade is a very long period which restricts the property (IPL) from growing. Now we have digital rights for five years. Currently, digital feed (live streaming) is a delayed but we don’t know how scenario will change after five years,” he explained.