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Viacom18 bagged both TV and digital rights of the national team's home series for the next five years on Thursday. They won the three-way battle against Star India and Sony by bidding approximately Rs 6000 crore. The BCCI had invited separate e-bids for both linear (TV) and digital for best price discovery. Viacom18 paid Rs 3101 crore (approximately) for digital and Rs 2862 crore for linear (TV). They previously bought the IPL digital rights for Rs 26,000 crore plus. They now have almost all the high-profile cricket properties save IPL linear (TV) and ICC events.
The rights will trigger with India's three-match home series against Australia beginning on September 22 and ending on March 31, 2028.
"Congratulations @viacom18 for winning the @BCCI Media Rights for both linear and digital for the next 5 years. India Cricket will continue to grow in both spaces as after @IPL and @wplt20, we extend the partnership @BCCI Media Rights as well," BCCI secretary Jay Shah said on 'X', formerly Twitter.
Viacom18 deal with BCCI:
India will play 88 international games across three formats including 25 Tests, 27 ODIs, and 36 T20Is with per match value of the deal standing around Rs 67.76 crore. This is nearly Rs 7.76 crore more than last cycle's Rs 60 crore per match value.
However, BCCI is getting Rs 175 crore less than the Rs 6138 crore it received during the last cycle which had 102 games. It is not a bad price to fetch as the per-match valuation has increased. Only marquee Test matches and series versus England and Australia will fetch good advertisement revenue. For matches against other nations, it is only the T20 which is the cash cow. India will play Australia in 21 games and will play 18 matches against England across three formats during the next five years.