Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Thursday (August 31) announced Viacom18 as the winner of the board's media rights for both linear and digital for the next five years.

Viacom18 has secured the rights for all bilateral international matches to be played in India for the 2023-28 cycle at a reported price of INR 67.76 crore per match as per PTI.

"Viacom 18 paid Rs 3101 crore (approximately) for digital and Rs 2862 crore for linear (TV). As has been the trend, digital has fetched more. "With IPL digital rights being bought by Viacom for Rs 26,000 crore plus, they now have almost all the high profile cricket properties save IPL linear (TV) and ICC events," a broadcasting industry source, tracking developments closely, told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

Sports18 will telecast the matches, both international and domestic, on TV, while it will be live streamed on OTT (over the top) platform Jio Cinema.

The broadcast cycle will begin from September 22, 2023 and will go on until March 31, 2028 for a total of 88 bilateral matches, that can be broken down into 25 Tests, 27 ODIs and 36 T20Is.

Disney Star had bagged the rights in 2018 for INR 6,138 crore (INR 60 crore per match) for 102 matches. That valuation has now reached INR 5,963 crore (for 88 matches) in the next five-year cycle – at INR 67.76 crore per match.

Disney Star, Sony Pictures Network India and Viacom18 were the three contenders in the fray during the e-auction conducted on 31 August.

As per the Invitation to Tender, the base price of TV rights was set at INR 20 crore per match while for digital rights it was set at INR 25 crore. In total, it took the base price of each match to INR 45 crore.

However, BCCI had also stated that if the combined value of each game falls below INR 60 crore, they have the right to annul the e-auction.

Viacom18 had previously bagged the digital rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and linear and digital properties of Women's Premier League (WPL).

(With Firstpost/PTI inputs)