The e-auction of the media rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) cycle 2023 to 2027 began on Sunday with reports suggesting that the value of rights for every match of the tournament has crossed the 100-crore mark on combining value for TV as well as digital price, marking it a rare milestone in the rights auction.

According to sources, with the value per match crossing the Rs. 100-crore mark, the overall value of the media rights has touched Rs. 41,000 crore as of now, with two parties, whose names are yet to be known, not willing to give up on the digital rights of the mega event.

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“At Rs. 54.5 crore per match, the value of the television rights have gone up to RS. 22,345 crore while at Rs. 46 crore per match, the digital bid has gone up to Rs. 18,860 crore. The combined value of the of rights so far is Rs. 41,205 crore,” said the report.

“Having crossed the Rs. 100 crore barrier, the overall value has shot up to Rs. 41000 crore at this stage, given that the number of games in the 2023-27 cycle will be a minimum of 410. That is Rs. 5000 crore more than the overall base price of the full rights package. The base price for all packages was around Rs 90 crore,” further said the report.

The report further mentioned that there is a strong chance for digital rights value to come very close to the price of the television rights. “That is a major development and the overall price is expected to breach the glass ceiling. As is well known, the base price for the TV was fixed at Rs. 49 crore and for digital it is INR 33 crore. So far, the digital is believed to have gone past Rs. 46 crore while the bidding value for the TV remains at Rs. 54.5 crore,” added the report.

Apart from packages A and B, which are television and digital groupings for the Indian broadcast region, there are two more packages in fray as well – like package C, which has 18-game non-exclusive special matches (base price of Rs. 11 crore) and package D, which is rest of the world rights (base price of Rs. 3 crore).

The report also said that with Sunday’s auction proceedings to pause at 6pm, the IPL media rights auction will carry forward to Monday as well, as per the rules set by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). It added that the bidders are making full use of the 30-minute gap present between every bid.

Star India were the current holders of the IPL rights for 2017-22 cycle, with a winning bid of Rs. 16,347.50 crore for both TV and digital in September 2017.

Previously, Sony Pictures Network won the IPL TV media rights for a period of 10 years during the inception of the tournament with a bid of Rs. 8200 crore.

(Inputs from IANS)