The Indian Premier League's (IPL) status as one of the biggest sports leagues in the world, let alone in cricket, was reaffirmed when its media rights for a five-year period, starting 2023 was sold for a total of ₹48,390 crore. The Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly, who was one of the marquee players and captain of Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL's first season in 2008, however said that the board's top brass had expected the sale to reach this magnitude, despite there being a fall in television ratings in the 2022 tournament.
“There was no apprehension. We unbundled it to make sure that everybody remains in the game. We were expecting this (windfall),” Ganguly told Sportstar, referring to the rights being sold in four packages, instead of one consolidated package.
One of the biggest talking points of the auction was that the digital rights ended up cumulatively costing more than the television rights. Star India bought the the television rights for Rs. 23,575 crore while the Viacom 18-led combine has been awarded the digital rights for Indian sub-continent Rs. 23,758 crore. The rest of the world rights were divided between Viacom 18 and Times Internet Ltd. for a total figure of Rs. 1,057 crore.
“That’s the way the world is going. We all expected that the digital rights will be big, and we are not at all surprised. This sport is very healthy and there is no doubt about it,” said Ganguly.
Ganguly said that the BCCI now plans to improve stadium facilities and provide better experiences for fans attending the games. It will also look to get the tournament to return to the home and away format, something that has been absent in the last three seasons due to Covid-19.
{{/usCountry}}Ganguly said that the BCCI now plans to improve stadium facilities and provide better experiences for fans attending the games. It will also look to get the tournament to return to the home and away format, something that has been absent in the last three seasons due to Covid-19.
{{/usCountry}}“It’s a great tournament and it will continue to thrive. But most importantly, the IPL has to go back to a home-and-away format from next year,” Ganguly said.
“We will work on it for sure and develop overall infrastructure for a better fan experience. A lot of new stadiums have come up, and the infrastructure of cricket in this country is huge. We will redo a few stadiums a bit and bring back IPL with completely different extravaganza and fandom next year,”
“The last two years have been affected by COVID and the biggest thing is that despite COVID, we managed to host the tournament and this time, we finished it with great hype in Kolkata and Ahmedabad…”