Mumbai, 19/4: Amazon.com Inc., The Walt Disney Co. and billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd. are among those that have signaled an intention to bid for the broadcast rights of the Indian Premier League, or IPL, according to people familiar with the matter, setting the stage for an epic showdown for the prized asset in cricket-crazy India.
Besides these, Sony Group Corp., Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd., and fantasy-sports platform Dream11 have also purchased the bid-related documents from Board of Control for Cricket in India, or BCCI, people said asking not to be named as the information is not public. BCCI is the sport’s local governing body that will be conducting the online auction starting June 12.
The auction will allow the winner or winners — there are four baskets of rights to bid for — to globally telecast matches of India’s top cricket league between 2023 and 2027 via live streaming and TV broadcast. Securing rights to the world’s third-largest sporting event by number of viewers — IPL is considered the Super Bowl of cricket — means access to hundreds of millions of eyeballs.
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