Amazon, Reliance vie for Rs 500 bn IPL telecast rights

Amazon’s rivalry in India with oil-to-retail conglomerate Reliance Industries looks set to head to the cricket field, where they will likely battle media heavyweights for telecast rights to India’s premier cricket league with its hundreds of millions of viewers.

Amazon.com Inc and Reliance Industries Ltd are expected to take on India units of Sony Group Corp and Walt Disney Co for exclusive five-year TV and digital broadcast rights to the two-month series of matches, at a cost that could run to a record Rs 500 billion ($6.7 billion), sources said.

Disney-owned Star India, which is one of the top broadcasters in India along with Sony and its planned acquisition Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, paid Rs 163.48 billion for the digital and television rights until 2022. The league’s matches reached 350 million viewers during the first half of the 2021 season alone. But traditional media firms now face stiff competition from deep-pocketed rivals like Reliance, India’s biggest retailer, and Amazon, competing for the fast-growing e-commerce market while building up their digital platforms.

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