Amazon.com Inc and Reliance Industries Ltd are set to
take on Sony Group Corp and Walt Disney Co for exclusive
five-year TV and digital broadcast rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL)
matches, at a cost that could run to a record Rs 50,000 crore ($6.7 billion),
Reuters reported.

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“Cricket is the second-biggest sport in the world
with two-and-a-half billion fans and IPL is like its Super Bowl,” said
Anton Rublievskyi, head of Parimatch, a betting company that advertised at the
IPL last year.

Disney-owned Star India, which is one of the top
broadcasters in India along with Sony and its planned acquisition Zee
Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, paid Rs 16,348 crore for the digital and
television rights until 2022. The league’s matches reached 350 million viewers
during the first half of the 2021 season alone.

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But these media houses are now going to face stiff
competition from deep-pocketed rivals like Reliance, India’s biggest retailer,
and Amazon. The two billionaire-led conglomerates will compete for the most
competitive and richest T20 league’s broadcaster’s rights in the world.

Reliance is also in talks with investors, including
foreigners, to raise up to $1.6 billion for its broadcasting joint venture,
Viacom18.

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However, Amazon lacks a TV platform and would need to
bring in a TV partner or could only bid for the digital portion. The Board of
Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which runs the tender, awarded it in 2017
to a consolidated TV and digital bid from Star, which surpassed any of the combined
individual bids.

Industry sources expect flexibility from the BCCI
given the prospects for record payments by bidders including a deep-pocketed
digital-only player like Amazon.

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BCCI secretary Jay Shah, in an interview with Reuters,
said the board had studied various models and proposals but he did not comment
on details or the likely dollar value of the bids.

“We will do our best to derive the right value a
tournament like the IPL deserves,” Shah said.