A project backed by Ambani has won the digital rights to broadcast the Indian Premier League (IPL), one of the world’s most valuable sports properties.
Viacom18 – a joint venture between Paramount and Ambani’s Reliance Industries – has acquired broadcast rights for approximately 238 billion rupees ($3.05 billion), Jay Shah, Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, He said on Twitter Tuesday.
Shah added that Disney-owned Star India, meanwhile, held the rights to broadcast television with a bid of nearly 236 billion rupees ($3.02 billion). Both deals run through 2027.
This puts the total value of the IPL’s media rights at a record high of $6.2 billion. Just five years ago, paid star of india $2.6 billion for television and digital rights for five years.
“Since its inception, IPL has been synonymous with growth, and today is Indian Cricket’s Red Speech Day,” Shah said on Twitter.
“IPL is now the second most valuable sports league in the world in terms of value per match,” he added.
The IPL competition only runs for two months a year, but its value to media companies has skyrocketed as the global audience has spread. On cost-per-match terms, the IPL has now outperformed the English The English Premier League, ranked after the National Football League only in the United States, Bloomberg He said.
The IPL was launched in 2007 and attracted the best cricketers in the world big money contracts. Its massive popularity in India is seen as a foolproof way to expand into the country’s burgeoning online media space.
Ambani, who is the richest man in Asia with a net value Nearly $100 billion, an oil company inherited but for years invested heavily in other areas such as technology, clean energy and retail.
Reliance declined to comment.
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