Viacom18 on Monday bagged the media rights of Women's Indian Premier League (IPL) for Rs 951 crore. As per the deal, which is for the period of 2023-2027, each match has been valued at Rs 7.09 crore. While the news is being seen as a massive development for women cricket, the valuation, say experts, is a good deal for the broadcaster as well. According to senior industry watchers, if the league is well marketed, it has the potential to become a very strong and big property in the coming years.

"It's a good valuation. At Rs 7 crore per match, it works out to about Rs 4-4.5 lakh per 30-second spot, which isn't too bad," explained Rediffusion's MD, Sandeep Goyal. “A cost of Rs 7 crore per match is not a lot of money. As long as the matches are viewable and of high quality, I believe the price is very reasonable," he added.

While cricket as a sport is widely popular in the country, both on TV and online, women's IPL, suggest experts, will necessitate extensive branding and aggressive marketing. And this is where Viacom18 is at an advantage, shares Karan Taurani, SVP, Elara Capital.

“Viacom18 does not need to invest separately in terms of a sales team or bring in advertisers on board because they already have a strong recall. A lot of marketing is being done for IPL as a property. So it's a win-win situation for them because they can target a new group of female advertisers and make the most of this property," opined Taurani.

“However, a lot of work needs to be put in to get the really famous women cricketers to help with campaigning and possibly creating awareness about the teams and women cricketers,” he added.

Taurani also stated that the valuation figure is roughly 2% of the men's IPL pie. The men's IPL is worth around Rs 10,000 crore per year, while the women's IPL has roughly one-third the number of matches as the men's IPL.

Viacom18 has been active in acquiring sports properties since its entry into sports in 2021. FIFA World Cup 2022, LaLiga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Abu Dhabi T10 series, Men's IPL, and now Women's IPL are among the properties acquired by the network. The network is explicitly aggressive in expanding its sports portfolio. In fact, e4m reported last week that Sports18 is believed to have decided to air IPL for free on the Jio app, a move aimed at increasing reach to over 500 million users.

"Viacom18 is primarily focused on increasing eyeballs," said Nitin Menon, Co-Founder of NV Capital. And for the time being, the only goal is to increase market share, he mentioned. 

Menon added that they are giving other players in the category a tough fight after securing the broadcast and digital rights for the Women's IPL.

"The fact that Women's IPL has just begun is itself a positive thing. This valuation has set a good foundation to look at it four years down the road when the media rights will be up for renewal. It has started a momentum that will be worthwhile in the end.”

Earlier this year, broadcast behemoths paid a hefty Rs 48,390 for five-year media rights to the men’s Indian Premier League (IPL). This is a threefold increase from the previous auction five years ago.

Disney Star paid Rs 23,575 crore for the rights to broadcast the league in the Indian subcontinent from 2023 to 2027, while Viacom18 paid Rs 20,500 crore for the league's digital rights. With $12 million per match, the IPL is the world's second most lucrative sports league, trailing only the NFL.