After over a month of back and forth over transparency and clarity in the upcoming media rights auctions of International Cricket Council (ICC) events, the world governing body has tweaked the bidding rules, yielding to Indian broadcasters’ demands.

With this, Indian broadcasters have decided to take part in the auctions for rights of events such as the Men’s World Cup, T20 World Cup, and Champions Trophy, people aware of the development told ET.

Post multiple rounds of talks, ICC on Friday agreed to multiple demands of the broadcasters after they boycotted its recent mock e-auctions, signalling a willingness to stay out of the entire auctions in case their demands weren’t met. It has set a benchmark price, spelled out conditions for holding a second round of auctions, and agreed to open the bids in front of the bidders.

It has announced a benchmark price of $1.4 billion for four-year media rights for India and $4 billion for the eight years, disclosing a multiplier formula of 2.8x for eight years against four years. Broadcasters may decide to bid lower, which will trigger a second round of e-auction.

A highly placed source close to the ICC board confirmed the development. “The final set of information has been sent to the bidders this weekend and bidding will happen next week,” he said. “This included a benchmark price and a minimum aggregator for 4-8 years. With the process coming to its conclusion, we are confident in getting a great result for the sport with this being supported by the estimate value of the rights.”

ICC has also agreed to open the closed bids in front of the bidders. In case the bids are above the benchmark price, the only condition to trigger a second round of e-auction will be if the difference between the first and the second highest bids is less than 10%. “ICC has agreed to three of the four conditions, and most of the broadcasters are now willing to work around it,” said a senior executive at one of the large broadcasters. “Earlier, there was no transparency, clarity or direction. Now at least there is some clarity and direction and a bit of transparency. We would have liked all the bids to be disclosed in front of everyone, but if the trigger for e-auction is less than 10% difference, it is acceptable,” the person added.

Top Four Readying Bids | page 7

Now, the top four broadcasters – Disney Star, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN), Viacom18, and

(ZEE) – are readying their technical and financial bids, people in the know said. The technical bids will be submitted on August 22 and those eligible will be asked to submit the financial bids on August 26.”I would say that better sense has prevailed,” top executive of a network told ET. “We are responsible broadcasters and we had valid demands. There was no cartelisation at the broadcasters’ end, but all had similar concerns independently.”ET had first reported on July 12 that Disney Star, SPN, Viacom18, and ZEE had raised concerns about ICC’s auction process, claiming lack of transparency, clarity and direction. They were unsatisfied with the clarifications provided by the world cricket governing body and expressed their strong disapproval of the proposed adoption of a hybrid system for the bidding process, as ICC hadn’t disclosed the conditions triggering the e-auction, or the base price.Three out of the four were of the view that if ICC failed to agree to their demands, they would boycott the auctions completely.An executive from a sports network said it was like a ping-pong match. “We presented our points to them, they issued some clarifications, we raised more concerns and they issued more clarifications. It was finally after none of us participated in the mock e-auction last week when they came to senses and agreed to the demands,” the person told ET.Initially, when ICC issued an invitation to tender, it had not kept any reserve price and was inviting closed bids from bidders. The governing body was looking at the last week of August for submission of bids and the first week of September to review them and formulate recommendations to the board for final approval.

A person close to the ICC board had confirmed to ET that they were open to going for a second round of auction in case the bids were not up to the mark, or if there is room for improvement. The last rights cycle (2015-2023) cost Star Sports $2.02 billion for the global rights. This time, ICC is auctioning India rights separately. The eight-year rights will include two ICC Men’s Cricket World Cups (2027, 2031), four Men’s T20 World Cups (2024, 2026, 2028, and 2030), two Champions Trophies (2025, 2029) and four World Test Championship finals (2025, 2027, 2029, and 2031).