Twitter joins Reliance Jio and Amazon in bidding war for IPL digital rights
Twitter is the latest to pick up the tender document in an effort to bag the Indian Premier League (IPL) digital media rights from the2018 edition of the cricket league, according to the Economic Times. The length of the contract is five years. It was earlier revealed thatIndian telecom operator Reliance Jio and American e-commerce giants Amazon are also in the fray for the digital rights.The Board of Control for Cricketin India (BCCI), last month, announced the Invitation to Tender (ITT) for the IPL media rights. The deadline to submit the bids is October 25."Cricket fans watch the IPL with Twitter and love tweeting about it. Globally, there were more than 10.6 million tweets related to the IPLin 2016, a 56 per cent increase over 2015 and nine out of ten Twitter users in India are fans of cricket," said AneeshMadani, a representative from Twitter India, to ET."At Twitter, we see this interest growing and are excited to continue working with long standing partnerslike the IPL to build a global, mobile fan base for cricket in the years to come."The social media company enjoys a fruitful partnershipwith the famed National Football League (NFL), where fans can watch American football live for free on Thursdays and also participate in open forumsand discussions.
Huge advantage for Star India and Sony Pictures?Meanwhile, another report has stated that the companies fighting for the IPL broadcast rights in Indiahave an advantage over the digital platforms as well as the international TV and digital broadcasters, when it comes to the bidding war. Currently,the front runners and the favourites -- Star India and Sony Pictures Network India (SPNI) -- can land with all the three IPL mediarights at once.
According to sources, the BCCI is willing to accept a "consolidated bid" from the TV broadcasters for all the media rights, wherethey need to put forward a one-bid figure for all three rights packages."The TV rights alone could fetch more than Rs 20,000 crore, butthose bids will now become consolidated bids instead of TV-only bids, meaning BCCI will end up giving the digital and international rights as afree value add to the TV broadcast rights," a bidder, on condition of anonymity, told the Times of India on Monday. "Anyone bidding fordigital and international only now is unlikely to stand a chance of winning."The TV rights are for 10 IPL seasons -- from 2018 to2027, while the digital rights are for five years each.
