CRICKET'S MIDAS MAN

Secretary Jay Shah's focus on basics has catapulted BCCI to the pinnacle of cricket with a lion's share in ICC revenues, and IPL raking in the moolah. As he is set to take charge at ICC, here's an exclusive on how he did it.

- Ashutosh Kumar

Ahead of the mega auction of media rights for Indian Premier League (IPL) for the 2023-2027 seasons in June 2022, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Jay Shah manoeuvered an unexpected and unprecedented shot. Shah, who took over in 2019, was confident that given the rapidly crashing data rates in the country, an additional revenue channel could be built around the evolving digital ecosystem. He engaged the big four consulting firms for the best possible solution. KPMG, EY, Deloitte and PwC provided the board with inputs on how to enhance its revenue potential and create additional revenue baskets. One of them suggested unbundling of media rights into separate TV and digital bids. BCCI promptly implemented the move.

Rest is history. Media rights for IPL 2023-2027 seasons were finally sold for an unprecedented ₹48,390.5 crore (worth $6.2 billion then) to Disney Star and Viacom 18. That catapulted IPL to among the world’s biggest and richest leagues with a valuation of $16.4 billion as of June 2024, according to global investment bank Houlihan Lokey.

“To work out the marketing model, we roped in advisors from the Big Four. Good ideas are always welcome. We split digital out of TV and the digital rights have exceeded the value of TV and we had clearly anticipated this,” Shah tells Fortune India in an exclusive interaction.

As per the new formulae, the rights were bid out under four packages: While Disney Star bagged the TV rights for India at ₹23,575 crore in the first package, Viacom 18 won the digital rights for India at ₹20,500 crore. Under the third package, Viacom 18 bagged digital broadcast rights for select matches for ₹3,258 crore. Additionally, along with Times Internet, it won the rights for the rest of the world for ₹1,057 crore in the fourth package.