India's early T20 World Cup exit may hit value of ICC media rights

Team India's early exit in the recently concluded T20 World Cup and the resultant drop seen in overall reach and viewership for the tournament in the country is likely to impact the value of the next rights cycle of the International Cricket Council (ICC), said multiple sports experts.

While the international governing body claims a "record viewership" worldwide, the fact that the tournament drew fewer Indian viewers than the 2016 edition would force Indian broadcasters to take a "long and hard look at the value", according to one of them.

As per Star & Disney India, the current media rights holders, the tournament's total reach in India in 2021 was 284 million, down from 293 million in 2016.


While the modest decrease could be ascribed to the increased number of matches and India's bowing out of the tournament in the Super 12 stage and playing against two weaker qualifier teams, advertisers paid almost four times more this year.

ET first reported that Star & Disney India had pre-sold their entire ad inventory on TV and digital for over ₹1,200 crore - compared to ₹370 crore in 2016. TV advertisers had spent between ₹9 lakh and ₹10 lakh per ten-second spot.

"The viewership of the final was decent at 6.09 TVR (male 15+ AB), but the overall tournament viewership was much lower than expected. This will directly impact the monetisation of the next ICC properties," said a top executive of a media buying agency.

A senior sports broadcasting executive added that going forward, the ICC wants to add more teams and has added the US, West Indies, New Zealand as host nations for some tournaments. But the move won't work with the Indian broadcasters, believe experts.

"India is the biggest market for them from a viewership as well as revenue generation point of view. While they want to extend cricket to other nations, it cannot be at the cost of India. Their current thinking will hamper their plans to generate good value. In priority, I will have the IPL and the BCCI rights ahead of the ICC rights," he said.

The ICC's current rights cycle will end in 2023, for which the then Star India paid close to $1.98 billion. However, with the addition of new properties, including the T20 World Cup, the rights value was revised upwards to $2.02 billion. A former Star executive added, "The ICC rights were the most unprofitable of the rights for the sports broadcaster."

ET had reported that the ICC wanted to initiate the process of selling the media rights of the next rights cycle - 2024-2031 - by November this year. While there is one entire year left for the current rights holder, the council wants to maximise its revenues from the Indian market and seeks to close the deal at the earliest. However, the plans have now been delayed, and the council is likely to start negotiations between March and May.

It is also learnt that the ICC is open to breaking the rights into two halves of four years each and selling them separately to the Indian market.