MUMBAI, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Losing the Indian Premier League broadcast rights to Star India was disappointing however, Sony Pictures Networks believes it’s sufficient cricket in its portfolio to challenge their most important rivals after striking a new deal with Cricket Australia a week.
SPN, owned by Sony Corp, have acquired the rights to broadcast Australian cricket at the subcontinent, such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka, for the next six years for an undisclosed amount.
The deal came after they lost out to Star India however Rajesh Kaul believes the failure to land the rights to the successful T20 contest wasn’t crucial.
“Disappointed? Yes, because we had nurtured IPL to the previous 10 years. We made IPL and made it to the massive brand that it’s currently,” Kaul told Reuters.
“Yes, we are small bit disappointed but luckily our dependence on IPL is not there now.”
India’s huge market is a significant draw for advertisers and sponsors, who plan product launches round reserve advertising slots and major cricket tournaments in advance in turn leading to a race between broadcasters to secure content.
Star India, a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox, a month bid that a staggering 163.48 billion Indian rupees ($2.52 billion) to tote the worldwide television and electronic rights of the IPL to the following five years.
SPN, who had owned the rights for a decade, was not the only other bidder for the television rights with 110.5 billion rupees but lost out to Star’s multi-platform offer.
Star also possesses rights to India’s home games and paid $757.6 million to the period from July 2012 to March 2018.
Those rights will probably be up for bidding which could see another form of bidding from both significant players in the sector.
“The BCCI rights will be useful to own. No doubt about that,” Kaul said. “But we shall be very thoughtful about it. Our IPL bid was competitive but still very thoughtful.
“We all are here to run a thriving business enterprise. That is at the core of our strategy. There’s so much cricket which can be found on our network already.”
The Ashes series between England and Australia around the New Year will be the very first fruits of their deal with Cricket Australia.
The deal reinforces their position following they paid $385 million to obtain TEN Sports, which possesses rights of cricket boards at South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe.
“Given that cricket still enjoys one of the highest viewerships among all viewers in the nation, the attention was to bolster that portfolio despite having five cricket boards together with us,” Kaul said in an interview.
“It is just another triumph for us, it gets our portfolio far more formidable. It consolidates our position because of a very powerful destination for cricket besides so many different sports.”
A deal also struck a Walt Disney device, with sports broadcaster ESPN in 2015, to establish new stations and foray.
SPN holds the World Cup rights to the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, also football leagues like Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A. besides broadcasting the NFL and the NBA at India
“The entire notion of getting TEN Sports was going to consolidate our position as a very powerful and serious sports broadcaster,” Kaul said.
“We are very happy that now we’ve got one of the very diversified portfolio of sports on our stations.”
($1 = 64.9000 Indian rupees) (Reporting from Sudipto Ganguly; editing with Nick Mulvenney)
Umesh Yadav (AP Photo)
