The TV rights will be awarded for the Indian subcontinent, while the digital rights will only be for the Indian market.
The two-year deal will run from 1 September 2023 to 15 June 2025 with the successful bidder having an option to extend their rights for an additional three years, starting on 16 June 2025 and ending on 15 June 2028.
The deadline for bid submission is August 7 and bidders will be shortlisted on August 11. The FSDL will then proceed to execute a standstill agreement with the chosen bidder and issue any necessary announcements.
This is the first time FSDL has floated a tender to sell the media rights for the property. Disney Star has held the franchise-based league’s media rights since its inception. Its association as the official TV and digital rights partner of ISL concluded with the 2022-23 season.
One of the sources said FSDL, which is a 65:35 joint venture (JV) between Reliance Industries and Disney Star, has appointed sports marketing agency Octagon to manage the closed bidding process.The source added that Octagon has identified potential partners and invited them to make an offer.The agency is believed to have reached out to all the potential players in the sports media ecosystem, including Disney Star, Viacom18, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI), Eurosport, and FanCode.
Most industry executives ET spoke with said Viacom18 is the frontrunner to bag the rights, as Disney Star is unlikely to participate in the bidding process since the broadcaster has been losing money from the property.
According to industry sources, Disney Star was losing more than Rs 100 crore from ISL while paying upwards of Rs 200 crore annually as media rights fee.
They added that other media companies are also likely to stay away from the bidding process due to the high base price and the fact that Reliance, which owns the majority stake in FSDL, is also the promoter of Viacom18.
“The Rs 275 crore per year base price for ISL is too high because the property has not seen great traction and monetisation has been very weak,” said a top-level executive with a leading media network, requesting not to be named.
Another senior sports broadcast executive said, on condition of anonymity, that the ISL media rights sale process will go the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) way.
“Octagon has reached out to us, but we are unlikely to take part in the bidding process due to the obvious conflict of interest,” the executive added.
In 2021, Disney Star acquired the PKL media rights for five years for a price of Rs 900 crore, as most media players chose not to place bids due to the conflict-of-interest issue. PKL is owned by Mashal Sports, in which Disney Star owns a 74% stake.
The ISL draws nearly 2 million people to the stadiums each season and 120 million domestic viewers annually, according to the invitation to offer document released by FSDL.
ISL 2023-24 will feature 139 matches, which are likely to go up to 163 with the addition of the 13th team in 2024-25 and 189 matches in the subsequent seasons following the addition of the 14th team.
In 2010, IMG Reliance, now known as Rise Worldwide, agreed to a Rs 700 crore contract with the All India Football Federation (AIFF) to purchase commercial rights to Indian football through December 2025. To ensure that FSDL retains the commercial rights after 2025, stringent back-end conditions including a ‘last right to match’ are in place.
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