‘Katam Bye Bye Tata Goodbye’- fans react as new media outlet wins rights for digital and TV broadcast for Indian Cricket
Indian cricket has always been a huge commodity over the last few decades. The chance to be associated with Indian cricket means cash registers ringing for the sponsors. The Indian dominance is […]
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Aug 31, 2023 7:36 pm
Indian Cricket (Source-Twitter)
Indian cricket has always been a huge commodity over the last few decades. The chance to be associated with Indian cricket means cash registers ringing for the sponsors. The Indian dominance is such that even world events like the World Cup and World T20 witness massive sponsors from India.
The Indian Cricket Board recently saw its TV and Digital rights tenure end. Star Sports and Disney Hotstar were the ones who were showing the games on TV and on OTT, respectively. The Indian Cricket Board had put out the chance for the big players to be part of the broadcasting rights for Indian cricket.
Viacom 18 gets past the finishing line
Leading broadcaster, Viacom 18 has won the rights to showcase Indian home cricket matches for the next five years. As per the deal, 36 T20 Games, along with 27 ODI matches and 25 Test matches will be broadcast. Sport 18 will have the TV broadcast rights, while Jio Cinema will have the digital rights.
The Indian cricket board had seen Disney Star pay a whopping INR 6138 Crores for a five-year period starting in 2018. At the end of the deal in 2023, the India Board saw the biggest names in the television industry vying to showcase Indian home cricket matches.
There were three competitors for the rights to home matches for the Indian cricket team. Apart from Viacom 18, there was Sony Pictures Network India as well as Disney Star which had the rights between 2018 to 2023.
The deal with Viacom 18 is set to begin in September 2023, when India will be hosting Australia for a three-match ODI series. Australia will then play a five-match T20 series after the ODI World Cup.
2024 will begin with the blockbuster five-match test series against England at home. Disney Star will meanwhile broadcast the ODI World Cup set to start on 5th October. IPL has seen Star Sports win the TV rights as Jio Cinema won the digital rights instead of Hot-Star. Jio Cinema created a revolution as they showcased IPL free digitally across several languages. This move turned out to be a masterstroke as the ratings soared for the Jio Cinema.
Jio winning rights for both TV and digital is bad news for viewers. It would have been really nice if someone else had won the TV rights. One broadcaster means monotonous viewing with same set of analysts, which gets boring with time.
