Here's the gaming app that made a ₹625 crore bet on IPL

livemint.com:

MUMBAI : Fantasy gaming app My11Circle on Wednesday won the race to be an official partner of the Indian Premier League (IPL), bidding ₹125 crore per year for a period of five years. The app from Games24x7 trumped incumbent Dream11, which bid ₹103 crore per year for the partner rights for the cricket tournament. Over five years, My11Circle will pay a total of ₹625 crore for the rights, two officials in the BCCI confirmed.

While the bids were opened on Wednesday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is expected to make a formal announcement later, one of the officials said on condition of anonymity. In the last round, Dream11 had paid ₹210 crore for official partner rights for four years, which ended in 2013. BCCI will give official partner or OP status to six entities from different categories, loosely organized around industries that bid for the rights.

All OPs get category exclusivity, which means no other player from fantasy category can be an official partner for the next five years. In the financial services slot, Angel Broking, which bid for a five-year partnership, outbid rival Groww by placing a bid of ₹82 crore per year, compared to the latter’s bid of ₹75 crore per year. The third official partner rights, for the financial services-cards category, was won by Rupay, which bid ₹70 crore per year for three years and won uncontested as no other company put in a bid.

Mastercard had picked up the tender document, but did not place any bid, the second official cited above confirmed, also requesting not to be named. Meanwhile, tyre maker Ceat will continue to be the ‘strategic time out’ partner for the next five years, with its winning bid of ₹48 crore per year. Here, too, there was no other bid.