The world governing body of cricket, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has reportedly decided to sell the media rights of its events separately for the Indian subcontinent. The governing body sees an opportunity to earn the most from selling its broadcasting rights in the cricket-crazy market.
The Indian subcontinent – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka is one of the biggest markets for the cricket industry, where India generates the most revenue. The governing body also expects that the bidding war for the media rights is going to be intense with some new players coming into the game.
Mukesh Ambani is reportedly planning to launch his own sports network, as a result, it will be rivalling the Disney-owned Star Sports and Sony Sports Network to secure the media rights of the ICC tournaments and other major cricket tournaments.
ICC was planning to schedule their auction in November but they had to make changes in their plans as the BCCI has scheduled its media rights auction this month. Following which ICC has pushed its auction date to early next year.
The new cycle of the broadcasting rights will be starting from 2024 and will run for the next eight years, which would include, two ICC Men’s Cricket World Cups (2027, 2031), four Men’s T20 World Cups (2024, 2026, 2028, and 2030), two Champions Trophies (2025, 2029) and four World Test Championship finals (2025, 2027, 2029, and 2031).
The last cycle, which started in 2015 and ends in 2023, was secured by Star Sports, for which the broadcasting network paid $2.02 billion.