Tenders for IPL media rights are out, August 28 is last date for bids

Tender documents to be available till August 24

After being abandoned last October, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has renewed its efforts to award media rights for the next cycle's Indian Premier League (IPL). The tender documents are available from July 17 and will be until August 24. The interested parties have to submit their bids by August 28, after which the winning bid will be announced.

The entities that had purchased the tender documents of the IPL media rights that were earlier scheduled to be on October 25, 2016, will be provided with the tender documents of the present IPL media rights soon after its release without any additional cost/charges.

While the usual suspects – Sony Pictures Network and Star India — were among the first to pick up the documents back then, some of the biggest digital players are also in the run with Amazon (US), Facebook (US), Twitter (US) and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio also buying the tender bid document. Jio, which was launched in September 2016, also has a provisional multiple system operator (MSO) licence — cable distribution license. 

The application, picked up by a total of 18 companies in 2016, is a universal document on which the applicants can choose to bid for digital and/or TV rights for a chosen territory. While it can’t be said for sure who will apply for what since no tender bids have been submitted yet, it can be safely assumed that Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and Jio will be gunning for the digital rights. Star and Sony too would be expected to bid for the digital rights in addition to television rights.