Two dozen bidders to participate in IPL media rights auction on September 4

Courtesy: PTI

New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India rescheduled the media rights auction date for the Indian Premier League to September 4. The previous plan was to open the bids on August 28. 

The SC had asked Vinod Rai, who heads BCCI's court-appointed committee of administrators, to report by August 28 whether electronic auctions could be held for the media rights. 

Meanwhile, by Thursday, which was the last day to pick up the tender document, six more bidders, Discovery, Bharti Airtel, BAM Tech, Yupp TV, DAZN/Perform Group and Yahoo!, have shown interest in vying for the rights. 

With this, the number of bidders has gone up to two dozen. 

The cricket board's global invitation to tender had previously attracted interest from 18 leading media and technology giants, including Star India, Sony Pictures Networks India, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Times Internet, ESPN, BT, Sky and GroupM. 

This is not the first time that BCCI had to defer the auction. Last year, when it first issued the invitation, the rights were supposed to be auctioned on October 25, 2016. However, after the board failed to get a go-ahead from the Justice Lodha Committee that was looking into the affairs of BCCI, it decided to postpone the auction indefinitely. 

Experts tracking the sector as well as the board said the rights could fetch Rs 12,000-14,000 crore. With the Indian sports broadcasting business becoming a duopoly market between Star India and SPN, the two players are likely to bid aggressively.