NEW DELHI: Will
Star
be going all out for the rights of Indian matches at home after bagging the IPL rights for a whopping Rs 16,000 crore? Star had let go the chance to bid for the media rights with Cricket Australia and England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), as they were focused on the Indian market.
A very top executive of STAR in a city hotel in Delhi on Saturday, where BCCI’s old guards led by former
BCCI chief N Srinivasan were discussing the strategy of the Committee of Administrators raised the base price issue in their protest letter, told TOI that the tender process for BCCI matches would be a must for the age-old broadcaster, but he wasn’t sure if his company would go all-out for the rights.
With the
Walt Disney Company
, which is known for its conservative style, still in the process of acquiring a chunk of
Rupert Murdoch
’s assets and it gives access to
Star India
’s over 720 million viewers in a month it will be interesting to see if the broadcaster would actually stretch more for winning the BCCI rights. With Star also not making money from India matches in the last six years or so and losing heavily for home Test and ODI games, it would be interesting if Star would again go over the roof to bag the rights.
It is also given to understand that Star has been saving money for BCCI rights so much so that the company didn’t even go for the media rights with Cricket Australia (CA) and England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). “Star already has two cricket properties in IPL and ICC events. We will surely go for the bids, but we may not go overboard,” the top executive said, which could be also be termed as public posturing.
A few market watchers too agreed that Star’s strategy as a mechanism to confuse the other broadcasters who would be taking part in the tender process. “Star was extremely aggressive in the IPL bidding process, but we have to see what they have to offer on the day it happens. It will be interesting to see what their parent company, which is Disney and in the process of acquiring Star, would actually influence the decision making,” a market source said.
In the earlier deal, Star was paying a flat rate of Rs 43 crore to BCCI for every home game including a Test, ODI and T20. With BCCI offering to stage 102 matches in next five years at home, it would be interesting to see how much BCCI would actually make from the e-auction on April 3, the first of its kind. The base price for per game is pegged around Rs 33 crore for global television rights and rest of the world digital rights. Another Rs 7 crore for Indian sub-continent digital rights package and Rs 40 crore for the global consolidated package.
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