Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in Asia, has grabbed the digital rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the next five years 2023-2027 for a whopping $2.6 billion as his Viacom18 joint venture with US giant Paramount Global and an investment group backed by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch's son James, staved off competition in the bidding.
Meanwhile, the TV rights were retained by Star Sports, owned by Disney.
Together the two deals are reportedly worth about $5.65 billion, dwarfing the $2.55 billion that Star paid in 2017 for digital and TV rights for the previous five seasons of the annual two-month T20 contest.
Two other packages, for the international broadcast of the league and non-exclusive rights for certain matches, were still being auctioned off on Tuesday by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Sony, which televised the IPL for the first 10 years after its inception in 2008, had been in the race to get a share of the competition, which recently completed its 15th edition.
Jeff Bezos's Amazon, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on rights for European soccer and American football, had earlier reportedly shown interest in the IPL but pulled out.
(AFP inputs)
