IDFC FIRST Bank bags title sponsor rights for India’s home international matches

The deal which is worth 4.2 crore per match will run till August 2026

IDFC FIRST Bank has bagged the title sponsor rights for India’s home international matches till August 2026. IDFC FIRST Bank a private bank that signed a deal worth 2.4 crore per match has succeeded Mastercard which acquired the rights from Paytm a mobile banking company that held the title sponsor rights for India’s home matches till 2021 having bagged them in 2015. The current deal saw a rise of 40 crore with the value of the previous deal being 3.8 crore. The base price for the bid was set at 2.4 crore. India will play 56 international games during the period of the deal kicking off with the three-match ODI series against Australia next month. The only other entity present in the bid was Sony Sports a sports broadcasting firm. According to Cricbuzz, a bid by an agency representing a corporate entity was rejected due to technical reasons. 

New Partnership

The BCCI is set to generate a sum of nearly 235 crores from the deal. Although the increase in value is a modest 12 percent, given the prevailing market conditions, there’s a perception that this represents a favorable arrangement for both the BCCI and the sponsors. This is especially notable considering the limited participation of corporate entities in the bidding process. It’s worth mentioning that the BCCI had responded to the market conditions by reducing the base price from Rs 3.8 crore to Rs 2.4 crore. More vitally, the second-best bid, by Sony Sports, was believed to be around the base price. The bidding process, a closed one at that, took place at a five-star hotel in South Mumbai on Friday.

TV and Digital Rights

The next big source of revenue for the BCCI will be the sale of the broadcasting rights the process of which is set to be completed by August 31. Disney Star, Sony, and Viacom 18 are the biggest players along with Zee who will merge with Sony in March next year and will become the largest broadcaster in the country which will benefit the BCCI if any of the two companies win the broadcasting rights. For the first time, BCCI will be selling the digital and TV rights from India’s home matches separately. If we talk about key players in the digital streaming arena then Jio is the frontrunner for bagging the digital rights. The streaming platform Jio Cinema already has the digital rights for IPL.