Disney has won the television broadcast rights to Indian Premier League cricket matches for the next five years in a deal worth about $3bn, according to people familiar with the matter.
However, the company lost the streaming rights to the matches to Viacom18, a joint venture between Reliance Industries, Paramount, and a James Murdoch investor group. Viacom18 has won the streaming rights in India for about $2.6bn, according to people familiar with the matter.
Television remains the primary way that Indians watch the IPL, but the online market is expected to grow much faster with the spread of smartphones in the coming years. Analysts say this will give Viacom18 and its owners an unrivalled platform to grow streaming and other digital businesses.
The IPL has been a key driver of subscribers to Disney Plus, which operates a unit called Hotstar in India. Hotstar customers in India make up more than a third of total Disney Plus subscribers, helping Disney to quickly become a streaming rival to Netflix.
A smaller package for the rights to stream about 20 per cent of the matches is still up for grabs, the people added. Disney could bid on this, although it would only allow the US group to stream about 18 of the season’s 74 matches, and would be non-exclusive.
These rights apply to the airing of IPL games from 2023 until 2027 and have been split up between Indian TV, Indian digital, and international. Those outside of India are still up for auction and bidding is set to continue on Tuesday.
The deals struck so far represent a significant premium to the previous auction in 2017 when Rupert Murdoch’s Star India won both the television and streaming rights globally for $2.6bn. Disney took over those rights when it acquired Fox in 2019.
Since its launch in 2008, the IPL has reshaped the game of cricket globally and turned India into one of the world’s most promising sport markets.
Media Partners Asia, a research firm, estimates that India’s online video industry will more than double to $6.5bn in annual revenues by 2027.
Losing the streaming rights to the IPL in India has been viewed as a risk to Disney’s streaming subscriber growth. However, some analysts believe that the IPL rights were not worth the heavy cost for Disney because Hotstar subscribers pay on average only 76 cents a month, compared to $8 a month in the US.
Disney chief executive Bob Chapek has promised Wall Street that Disney Plus will reach 230mn to 260mn subscribers by 2024.
The market for live sport rights remains increasingly lucrative for leagues and has contributed to splintering within the larger media industry as legacy networks and upstart streamers compete for a share of consistent ratings draws around the world.
Disney holds broadcast rights for each of the core four US professional sport leagues as well as 55 sport channels globally.
The company said in a filing that it expected to spend $33bn on produced and licensed sport content in fiscal 2022, up from $25bn last year, because of continued scheduling delays from the pandemic, in addition to efforts to expand its direct-to-consumer offerings.
