In the following two days, BCCI will publish the bidding documents for India.

The media rights auction for the international cricket matches in India will be made public in the next day or two. The prospective parties have been advised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its advisors, Ernst & Young, that the eagerly awaited announcement will be made by Tuesday (July 25), if not within the next 24 hours. August 19 has been designated as the deadline for concluding the sale of the media rights.

There appears to still be some disagreement as to whether the method of sale will be through an electronic auction or closed bidding, therefore prospective participants have not been explicitly told of this. But given the BCCI’s prior success and the spectacular auction of the Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights last year, it is assumed that the sale will be made through online bidding. The five-year validity of the media rights is from 2023 to 2027.

 BCCI

The BCCI appears to still be working on some series agreements, thus the actual number of games and their breakdown into Tests, ODIs, and T20Is have not been determined. But as with the last cycle, it is anticipated that there will be about 100 matches. For comparison, the prior cycle had 103 games. The new cycle is anticipated to continue the current pattern in international cricket, with fewer One Day Internationals (ODIs) and more Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) than in the previous cycle, but the number of Tests is likely to stay the same.

The bilateral rights were sold by the BCCI to Disney Star for INR 6138.10 Crore in the previous agreement, or around INR 61 Crore per international game across formats. This time, it’s anticipated that the base price will be significantly greater than that sum. The rights will be sold in several packages, with the linear and digital rights being separated, and bidders won’t have the option of submitting a bid for the entire package.

There will also be additional packages, such as those for non-Indians and the rest of the globe. It is unclear that the tender will feature a unique non-exclusive package like the one that greatly raised the IPL tender’s final bid price of INR 48390 Crore ($6.2 Billion).

The BCCI hopes to have the deal closed by August 19 so that the new owner will have at least a month to promote the cycle’s first three-match ODI series against Australia in September, which is intended to serve as a warm-up for the World Cup in October-November.