Star India has retained the television broadcast and digital rights for all International and domestic cricket played in India for the next five years at a whopping Rs6,138.1 crore ($944 million), outbidding rivals such as Sony Pictures Networks India and Reliance Jio. The current bid value is significantly higher than Star TV’s record 2012 bid of Rs3,851 crore ($750 million at that time). The winner of the broadcast rights was determined by an e-auction, a first ever in the world of sports, that stretched over three days. During the auction, three companies—Sony, Star and Reliance Jio—were decided to bid for the global consolidated rights (GCR) for the 2018-23 cycle of India’s home bilateral series. Previously all broadcast rights were sold through a closed bid where participants would get one chance to submit a sealed bid, the highest bidder would then be declared the winner. In the e-auction, all bidder got to make incremental bids in an allotted amount of time. Bidders could drop out at any point, this continued until one bidder remained. Cricinfo has a detailed explainer on the e-auction process. This win effectively establishes Star India’s monopoly over all cricket media rights in India, including the Indian Premier League (IPL) which it won for Rs 16,347.50 crore (around $2.55 billion) in September 2017. Star India, which the Walt Disney Company agreed to acquire from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, already has TV rights to all tournaments organized by the International Cricket Council, including the Cricket World Cup, as well…
