Viacom18, the Indian media conglomerate, has signed off yet another year on a massive note. In 2021, Viacom18 laid its hands on some of the prominent global sports competitions and the joint venture expanded its portfolio by walking on the same path in 2022 too.
The Reliance-backed entity commenced the year with the launch of a dedicated sports channel named Sports18. In the Indian Premier League (IPL) Media Rights Auction, which took place earlier this year in June, following a three-day bidding war, Viacom18 bagged digital rights to the marquee Indian domestic T20 competition for a whopping INR 23,758 crore. The media rights auction was a historic event as the digital rights of IPL was more expensive that the TV rights, which was acquired by Disney Star for INR 23,575 crore.
After acquiring the biggest T20 competition across the globe, Viacom18 reached South Africa as it obtained exclusive rights to the new T20 league, SA20, which is starting on January 10, 2023. The association has been inked for 10 years. It made some more progress in the same region as the company also landed a seven-year rights deal with the official cricket governing body of South Africa, Cricket South Africa (CSA).
Before the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Viacom18 announced that the multi-team tournament can be viewed on JioCinema. Apart from acquiring media rights for multiple sports competitions, the Indian media baron also tasted success in providing coverage as the FIFA World Cup final gathered 32 million viewers on JioCinema.
Viacom18 also teamed up with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to secure exclusive broadcast rights to the Olympic Games Paris 2024, along with non-exclusive rights to the Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024, in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
In a recent most development, Viacom18 also signed a deal to broadcast the Tata Open Maharashtra. The live coverage of the main draw will be provided by JioCinema, Sports18-HD, and SD versions of Sports18-1.
Viacom18’s elite media rights portfolio also consists of National Basketball Association (NBA), Diamond League, Serie A, Ligue 1, as well as ATP and BWF events.