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Star TV bags rights for Indian cricket

Star TV, owned by Rupert Murdoch, has won the rights to broadcast Indian cricket for 2012-2018. The deal, which also includes internet and mobile rights, was valued at Rs 3851 crores (approximately $750 million) and covers 96 matches. The other bidder - at Rs 3700 crores, or $727 million - was Multi-Screen Media (Sony), which currently owns the rights to the IPL.

   Under the deal, Star TV will be paying approximately Rs.40 crores (US$7.86 million) for each match, significantly more than the Rs.32.5 crores (US$6.38 million) the previous broadcaster, Nimbus, had to pay for each match. The pricing is in two stages, Farooq Abdullah, chairman of the BCCI's marketing committee, told ESPNcricinfo: Rs 32.2 crores ($6.3 million) for the matches from 2012 to 2014 and Rs 43.20 crore ($8.5 million) for the matches from 2014 to 2018.

  The BCCI's marketing committee set the price for category A games at Rs 31.25 crores per match (approx $6.1 million) plus Rs 1 crore (approx $0.2 million) while category B games were set at Rs 34 crores (approx $6.67 million) plus Rs 1 crore. The contract with Nimbus had a base price of Rs 31.25 crores (approx $6.1 million) per game for each of the three formats purely for the broadcast rights.

The board did attempt to sell the internet rights separately last year, but the tender found no takers at the initial base price of Rs 3 crores (approx $0.6 million) or its subsequently reduced price of Rs 2 crores (approx $0.4 million)...