Now Reading: Cricket rights costs out of control, says JioStar’s Shankar
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Cricket rights costs out of control, says JioStar’s Shankar
JioStar vice chairman Uday Shankar said cricket media rights prices have 'run out of control' and that the economics of the business are broken. Speaking at the ET World Leaders Forum, he…
JioStar vice chairman Uday Shankar said cricket media rights prices have 'run out of control' and that the economics of the business are broken. Speaking at the ET World Leaders Forum, he said ten years ago four media companies bid for sports rights, but now JioStar is often the only one standing. The company has committed billions of dollars to the IPL, ICC events, and BCCI bilateral cricket.
Shankar said sports has been a 'great investment' for JioStar because it drives massive user growth, the platform now has 600 million monthly active users on digital. But he argued the traditional advertising-plus-subscription model is no longer sufficient for premium video businesses. He pointed to shorter cricket formats like the IPL as the future, and said women's cricket has strong potential. The company is now focused on improving content experience and finding a new business model.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The IPL media rights auction of 2022 set a benchmark of Rs 48,390 crore for the 2023-2027 cycle, a five-fold increase from the previous deal. That jump reshaped the entire market, pushing ICC and BCCI bilateral rights to similar multiples. JioStar now carries the combined cost of three major cricket rights packages, a concentration that no single broadcaster carried a decade ago. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's tariff order for cable and DTH services also caps how much JioStar can recover from subscribers, squeezing the traditional pay-TV leg of the business. What Shankar calls 'something broken' is the arithmetic where rights costs grow faster than ad revenue and subscriber fees combined. The next real test comes when the IPL rights cycle opens again in 2027, and whether any new entrant, a global tech platform or a rival telco, steps in to bid will determine if the current duopoly dynamic holds or breaks further.
Source: brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
