The Sourav Ganguly-led BCCI on Tuesday floated the media rights tender for the next five-year IPL cycle, starting 2023. For the first time, an e-auction will be held to determine the new winners, secretary Jay Shah said.

“The detailed terms and conditions governing the tender process including eligibility requirements, process for submissions of bids, proposed media rights packages, and obligations, etc. are contained in the ‘Invitation to Tender’ (ITT) which will be made available on receipt of payment of non-refundable fee of Rs 25 lakh plus any applicable goods and services tax,” the BCCI said in a media release.

The IPL governing council, which met in Mumbai on Friday, had approved the process while also deciding that the multiple broadcasters or OTT platforms will not be allowed to bid together by forming a consortium.

Sources told The Telegraph that interested parties would have to bid separately for television and digital rights.

There are four packages in all that will be up for sale — television rights, digital rights, 20-odd games in non-exclusive special rights category and one for the rest of the world. Each package will have a base price and a participant can bid for an individual package or multiple packages. The e-auction will be held from June 12 and is expected to continue for at least two days.

When the BCCI had floated an e-auction for international cricket matches in India in 2018, the bidding process took two days to complete. That the bidding will be taking place after the completion of the 15th edition of the IPL gives credence to talk doing the rounds that Star, the current rights holders, wanted the rights for the new 2023-27 cycle to be sold after the completion of the tournament.

Star had paid Rs 16,347 crore to win the rights for the five-year period ending this season.

Industry insiders say the value of the media rights could be in excess of Rs 50,000 crore as the value of TV rights alone is expected to be above Rs 20,000 crore. The digital rights could match the TV rights if not exceed it.

The highest bid for the digital rights, made by Facebook in 2017 when the last bidding took place, was for Rs 3900 crore.

Sony and Zee may have to bid separately since consortiums are not allowed. Other big players who could pose a big threat to Star are Disney, Amazon, Netflix, Comcast, Facebook, YouTube and Viacom18.

“I’m pleased to announce that @BCCI has issued the tender document for @IPL media rights for seasons 2023-27. With 2 new teams, more matches, more engagement, more venues, we are looking to take #TataIPL to newer and greater heights,” Shah tweeted. “The Tender document is now available for purchase. For the first time in @IPL history, the media rights will be e-auctioned. The e-auction will commence from June 12th, 2022.

“I’ve no doubts that with this process there will not only be revenue maximisation but also value maximisation, which will benefit India Cricket immensely.”