The International Cricket Council (ICC) is reportedly planning to cut down on the duration of its upcoming media rights deal to maximize its revenue.
Till now, the apex body used to have its media rights deal signed for eight years, but as per sources they are planning to reduce the duration to four years. They are also planning to have multiple media rights holders for different territories instead of a consolidated global rights holder.
Sources in an interview said, “A year ago, the ICC began working on this plan. They realized that opting to float a tender just for the India market – their biggest revenue-earner – would help them consolidate their biggest market first and then allow them the necessary time and resources to tender other global territories such as UK & Europe, Americas, African countries, Australia and New Zealand.
“It’s right, ICC this time is likely to shun the process of selling all rights to one broadcaster as is the case with the current cycle of ICC rights where Star holds the entire global pie. ICC is likely to distribute their rights on the territory-to-territory basis.”
These reports come just days after the BCCI announced that it will be releasing the media rights tender at the end of the month immediately after the announcement of the two new IPL teams.
This was a big blow to the ICC as earlier reports suggested that the international cricket board was looking forward to selling their media rights 24 months early because of the fear that IPL media rights can bag the bigger budgets available for potential bidders.
But before they could do that, the BCCI announced their plans to release the media rights tender this month itself.
Sourced remarked that “BCCI’s move clearly took the industry by surprise because the ICC was trying to work out and see if they could bring a tender ahead of the BCCI. This BCCI move stumped the ICC and other stakeholders. Now the ICC has no choice but to wait for the IPL tender to come out, else they position themselves in a stand-off with the BCCI.”
The new plan of having territorial rights holders and to have its tender released for four years is set to benefit the apex body in terms of revenue in a large way.