Star India will pay a grand sum of ₹6,138.1 crore for 102 international matches (22 Tests, 45 ODIs and 35 T20Is) over a period of the next five years (April 2018 to March 2023), starting with Afghanistan’s one-off, inaugural Test match to be played in Bengaluru from June 14 to 18.
The BCCI CEO Rahul Johri said at press conference at the Cricket Centre on Thursday that the trailblazing e-auction ended a few minutes after 3 p.m. with Sony Network Pictures (SPN) India stopping its bid at ₹6,118.59 crore. The third participant in the e-auction was Reliance Jio.
Last September, Star India won the IPL rights for five years (2018-2022) by making a successful consolidated bid at ₹16,347.50 crore. Having won the ICC’s audio-visual rights for 2015-2023 at ₹11,880 crore, the Star group’s eight-year cricket spend has touched a humongous ₹34, 365 crore.
Although the average for 102 matches works out to ₹60.18 crore per match, as against the ₹43.2 crore per match (pm) received for the previous four years, the BCCI will actually receive ₹46 crore pm for 2018-19 (21 matches), ₹47 pm for 2019-20 (23 matches), ₹46.5 crore pm for 2020-21 (14 matches), ₹77.4 crore pm for 2021-22 (23 matches) and ₹78.9 crore pm for 2022-23 (21 matches).
Star India Chairman Uday Shankar said: “I definitely feel elated. Our journey with cricket started with the BCCI six years ago. It has always been special. No matter how popular the other tournaments might be, when the national team puts on the national jersey that’s a very special tribute. Having the IPL and the BCCI rights, we get a special position.”
The BCCI acting-secretary Amitabh Choudhary said: “Star India has shown faith in the BCCI and Indian cricket. It’s been with us since 2012 and it has decided to continue its relationship with us, the cricketers and most importantly the legion of Indian cricket fans across the world.”
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