The Indian cricket league is sold for more than 5,600 million, more than the Spanish LaLiga

The Indian Premier Cricket League (IPL) auctioned on Monday the broadcasting rights for its next five seasons for 5,642 million dollarsbecoming one of the sporting competitions with the highest value in the world, even above the Spanish soccer league.

In the absence of auctioning two of the four packages offered by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the rights to broadcast on television the 410 matches from the 2023-2027 seasons slightly exceeded $3 billion, while digital rights amounted to $2.6 billion, Indian news agency ANI reported, citing unnamed sources.

Both types of packages have gone to two different chains, without the name of any of them being revealed yet. Among the contenders are TV titans like Viacom 18, Sony India o Disney.

These 5,642 million dollars of the current agreement will increase tomorrow, when the bidding for the other two remaining packages of television rights is closed, which although lower cost may contribute to the value of the IPL exceeding 6,000 million dollars.

These prices almost triple the last contract reached by Star India (owned by The Walt Disney Company), which broadcast the Indian cricket league matches between the years 2017 and 2022 for an amount slightly higher than 2,091 million dollars.

Before the Disney conglomerate, it was the Indian branch of Sony that held the IPL broadcast rights after paying some $1.05 billion in 2008 to broadcast the next ten seasons.

The current deal makes the Indian Premier League one of the most financially attractive sports leagues. Although still very far from the popular NFL of American football, which last year signed a batch of television contracts for the period 2023-2033 that will bring it 110,000 million dollars, the almost 1,200 million that the cricket league will earn per year brings it closer and closer to the level of other leading sports competitions worldwide.

It is the case of the NBA which reports earnings from television of 2,660 million dollars per year or the UEFA Champions Leaguewhich earned 2,389 million in the 2020/21 season (latest data available) from broadcasting its matches.

The one who will overcome is LaLigawho signed a contract of 4,950 million euros (about 5,166 million dollars) last December for the following five seasons.

The small number of matches organized by the IPL each year, at a rate of 74 per season, will make each of its matches the second most valuable of any sports competition in the world, with a price that will exceed 12.8 million dollars per game, trailing only the NFL.

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