New Delhi: Star Sports India on Thursday retained the Board for Cricket Control in India’s (BCCI) exclusive media rights for the broadcast of the Indian cricket team’s home matches for the 2018-2022 cycle, BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary confirmed.
Edging Sony and Reliance Jio in the bidding wars, which lasted for three days, The 21st Century Fox owned-Star claimed the rights for a record INR 6,138.1 crores for the coverage of 102 matches scheduled to be played in Indian soil in the next five years, paying the BCCI an approximate INR 60 crores per match.
Shattering the previous record of INR 3851 crores the channel had paid for the BCCI broadcasting rights between 2012 and 2018, the bid still stands some distance away from the INR 16, 347.5 crores (2.55 billion) Star paid to coup the global media and digital rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) from Sony Pictures Network for the period between 2018 and 2022.
But with the BCCI rights also in the bag, Star has essentially established a monopoly in the cricket broadcasting sphere, with the rights for many ICC tournaments (men’s and women’s 50-over World Cup, World T20) and the one of the world’s most popular domestic tournaments, IPL, also belonging to Star. (ANI)