ICC delighted at the rising IPL media rights value

The ICC has been pretty impressed with the enhancement of the IPL media rights. The apex cricket authority of the world has summed up, that this move in the Indian Premier League will only make cricket better for the future.

After monitoring the event very closely, ICC concluded that it was an excellent move for Indian cricket and the kind of impact that it can have in the upcoming days. Also, the current media rights deal makes IPL the second most lucrative league in the world, right after the NFL.

Sunil Manoharan, the ICC vice-president of media rights said, "I think more than anything we're delighted. Ultimately to see cricket is so popular and so strong in the strongest market in the world, it's fantastic news for everyone."

The most momentous part of the media rights deal is the rise in digital rights which has surpassed the value of the TV and was a major factor in raising the value of the deal by leaps and bounds. For ICC, this trend signaled the fact that IPL is just signposting the hunger for cricketing content.

“Expectations have not been changed. We've long felt that IPL values would be in that range. It wasn't a surprise. It was a good affirmation of our sense of where the market is and the value of premier cricket rights in that market,” said Anurag Dahiya, the ICC’s Chief Commercial Officer.

“I think the IPL process has amply demonstrated that there is a huge appetite for rights. Some of the players have been successful in some of the bids. Clearly, there are resources available with both successful and unsuccessful bidders in that process,” he further added.

He would conclude by shedding some light on the POV of the broadcaster, saying, “As a broadcaster, it's not like there's a war chest that you spend on one thing and don't have plans for the next for the rest. Everyone has visibility of our rights coming up. That's part of the puzzle everyone puts together. There is definitely appetite and that process hasn't done anything to diminish the overall appetite in that market. It's only highlighted to the market that there is keen competition for these rights which is what we had always assumed going into these rights. The timing was deliberate - we wanted to do it in a particular sequence. So it's going to plan."