Why BCCI is taking e-auction route for media rights

NEW DELHI: Public auction through sealed covers for award of media rights will be a thing of the past after BCCI conducts its first e-auction for the 102 home matches involving the Indian cricket team on April 3. It is understood that the Committee of Administrators (CoA), who were instrumental in conducting the IPL media rights through the earlier system of sealed bids, initiated an e-auction bidding after several rounds of discussion with e-commerce company Mjunction –a semi-public enterprise.
The CoA sources said that BCCI couldn’t do the e-auction earlier, as per the submitted petition of Subramaniam Swamy in the Supreme Court, because the bidding process was far more complicated. With several territorial segments in IPL including broadcast and digital rights, BCCI had to opt for a much simpler process and sealed covers emerged as a favourite choice to stay away from complications.
But after understanding the e-auction process, BCCI exuded confidence that the bidding will be far more transparent. With not too many items up for grabs, media rights e-auction is also going to create a structured process, CoA sources indicated. “The media rights process would be the most interesting e-auction and BCCI is confident to maximum the media rights value,” a top board official explained.
Reportedly, the e-auction process was earlier slated on March 27, but BCCI had to postpone the bidding dates after the interested parties showered the board with several queries. This delay didn’t go well with some of a broadcaster like Star. “We don’t know why there is a delay when everything is ready,” a market source added.
With the old guards keeping a close watch on the development and also worried about India not playing more than 13 games at home this season, there is a widespread concern if the state bodies would be left with enough share or not after CoA decided to dole out 200 per cent hike to cricketers at all levels – both domestic and internation.