When IPL Is Rs 48,000 Crs, WIPL Is Just 951 Cr!

BCCI created history today. With IPL, the cricket board is already witnessing huge profits. Now, by introducing the Women’s IPL (WIPL), the board entered the next league. The media rights of WIPL have been sold out for a fancy amount. Viacom 18 has secured the media rights for the first-ever women’s Indian Premier League (IPL) for a five-year term. The rights were acquired in an auction held in Mumbai, with Viacom 18 paying INR 951 crore (approximately USD 116.7 million) for the period from 2023 to 2027.

Only two of the eight parties that had purchased the tender had participated in the auction(Viacom 18 and Disney Star). The rights acquired by Viacom 18 include both linear TV and digital distribution and cover a global audience, including India.

According to BCCI Secretary Jay Shah, the winning bid for the women’s IPL media rights amounts to a per-match value of INR 7.09 crore (approximately USD 866,000) over a five-year period. This is significantly lower compared to the men’s IPL, which had a five-year deal of INR 48,390.5 crore (approximately USD 6.2 billion) with a per-match value of INR 58 crore (approximately USD 7.43 million) in June last year.

The per-match value of INR 7.09 crore was calculated for 22 matches per season in the first three years, with the possibility of increasing to 34 matches in 2026 if the BCCI sees potential for adding a sixth franchise based on the performance of the women’s IPL.

The inaugural season of the women’s league will be a five-team double round-robin tournament, tentatively planned for March 2023.