Broadcasters formally write to ICC, say tender for media rights doesn't 'encourage' them to bid

cricket broadcasters - Disney, Viacom18, Sony and Zee - who participated in the e-auction for media rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) have written to the International Cricket Council (ICC), letting the governing body of the game know that the current tender document does not encourage them to submit a bid. All four broadcasters have the same reasons for writing to the ICC - absolute lack of clarity on the process - and have indicated (not verbatim) that they may not turn up at the bidding table. Ugliness, along with some potential for future litigation and quite a bit of antagonism enveloped the air this week after the ICC sent out a huge list of clarifications to the broadcasters, answering their questions in detail, but not making any major changes to the tender process.

"All four broadcasters have written to the ICC. We've been reading media reports on how Amazon wants to be in the fray too, which is fine. But there's no clue if Amazon is 'happy' with this process.

If they are, even I'd love to know the whys and hows of what they're seeing here that we're missing. As far as we are concerned, it's clear - the current process doesn't encourage us to submit a bid," a leading broadcaster told TOI. The tender process requires the broadcasters to submit a closed bid to bag rights for ICC's global events for the India markets.

The ICC has invited bids for four as well as eight years, without explaining the metrics behind it or without determining how it will evaluate the bids. "They've asked us to participate in a mock-auction this week (between 16th & 17th). We're yet to confirm the same, don't know about the others.