​ICC media rights on hold as world body waits for BCCI’s IPL tender; industry pushes for Netflix & YouTube models – report originally appeared on Cricket News.
Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.KEY TAKEAWAYS:The ICC’s media rights tender will only be reportedly released after the BCCI first launches its own IPL rights tender, which remains on hold.Industry executives are pushing the BCCI to explore Netflix, YouTube and Amazon-style rights models rather than relying solely on traditional broadcasters.BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia sits on the ICC’s five-member media rights working group being headed by ECB chief Richard Thompson.Netflix, YouTube & a new blueprint! Why BCCI’s delay in IPL media rights sale has left broadcasters in limbo – explainedICC’s media rights tender has hit a peculiar bottleneck, and the BCCI is reportedly at the centre of it.According to The Times of India, the ICC last week set up a five-member working group tasked with exploring how to maximise the value of its 2028-31 media rights cycle. But before that process can move forward, the world governing body has to sit and wait, as a tender cannot go to market until the BCCI releases its IPL media rights document first.The ICC’s media rights working group, chaired by ECB chief Richard Thompson along with ICC chairman Jay Shah and BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia among its members, has been put together with a clear mandate: figure out how to either hold or improve the current value of ICC broadcast deals as they come up for renewal. But the sequencing of how rights go to market matters enormously in cricket. The IPL is the most valuable domestic cricket property on the planet, and its rights cycle sets the benchmark for pricing, for platform strategy, for what broadcasters and technology companies are willing to commit to. The ICC can’t price or structure its own rights without understanding what the IPL market looks like first.MORE: IPL 2027: BCCI decides to stage mini-auction in India; impact player verdict awaited BCCI/Creimas BCCI yet to appoint financial advisor for IPL tenderThe last time BCCI went through this process, in 2022, it brought in KPMG to draft the IPL tender document. That document contained something innovative: a non-exclusive digital rights package covering a curated selection of 18 high-value matches per season within a 74-game structure.Set in the Indian subcontinent, that specific package alone fetched Rs 3,273 crore, working out to Rs 33.24 crore per match. For the first time in IPL history, internet rights generated more revenue from the subcontinent than traditional television rights.That was a landmark moment, and yet, four years on, the BCCI hasn’t appointed a financial advisory firm to begin the work for the next cycle. Industry executives watching developments say they had expected the board to move quickly, particularly given how the technology landscape has shifted.”We were expecting to