Building blocks in place, Viacom18 will hope to build profitable sports business: Anil Jayaraj, CEO
Viacom18 aims to build a profitable sports business, having committed investments of over ₹34,000 crore for properties like Indian Premier League (IPL) digital rights, India bilateral cricket matches, Women's Premier League, Indian Super League, and 2024 Summer Olympics, said Viacom18 Sports CEO Anil Jayaraj, in an exclusive interview to ET.
The company recently bagged the TV and digital rights to all the domestic and international cricket matches held in India for ₹5,963 crore till 2028. The company will be paying ₹67.76 crore per match, including ₹35.23 crore a match for digital and ₹32.53 crore per match for TV.
Last year, the company won the digital rights to the IPL for a sum of ₹23,758 crore till 2027.
«We want to run a profitable sports business.
With all the building blocks in place, all our efforts are directed towards building a profitable sports business. At a large scale, you can't afford to have a loss-making sports business,» said Jayaraj.
He further stated that the BCCI media rights acquisition will bolster Viacom18's sports business as it has come at a reasonable price. «We have won the BCCI rights at a good price, and this is something that will work out very well for us.
Indian cricket is still among the preeminent viewing events in the country,» Jayaraj said.
While Viacom18 has been a big believer in digital, the company's decision to bid for the BCCI TV rights surprised many.
Nevertheless, Jayaraj said that the company's fundamental perspective remains unchanged: digital is on the rise, while television is experiencing a decline.
«While many consumers have fully moved to digital, there are some consumers who are yet to fully move to digital. We want to use the power of cricket to enable the transition
