Hotstar: Only Destination For Indian To Stream Cricket

• Star India currently has worldwide broadcasting rights to Indian Cricket, as well as rights to IPL and ICC tournaments.
• This will make Hotstar the only online streaming channel that will broadcast Indian cricket.
• Star India, which is a part of 1st Century Fox’s film and entertainment business, has been recently acquired by Walt Disney.

Important news for all cord cutting cricket fanatics in India - Star India has procured all worldwide digital rights to Indian cricket as well as traditional TV rights. Apart from this, Start India also bought all rights to IPL (Indian Premier League) and ICC tournaments. These licensing will reflect with Hotstar becoming the only online streaming channel that will broadcast Indian cricket.

Star India previously paid Rs. 12,320 crores to gain rights to ICC tournaments which will last from 2015 to 2023, whereas they also bought rights to broadcast IPL back in September 2017 at a price of Rs. 16,347.5 crores which will last from 2018 to 2022. The worldwide rights, however, were much cheaper and Star India only had to pay Rs. 6,138 crore to obtain broadcasting rights from 2018 to 2023.

This current situation gives Star India a monopoly over Indian cricket rights globally and will surely impact their competition. For example, Sony Pictures Network, who currently holds rights to IPL had plans on launching their separate channel dubbed 'Six' if their bid had won. Furthermore, Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd were also trying to attain the rights which would have given TV18 and Reliance, the streaming privileges.

Image Courtesy of Deccan Chronicle

Previously there was news that the likes of Google, Facebook, and YuppTV were also fighting for the rights to global Indian cricket broadcasting, but seeing that there were only three competitors it was most likely a rumor.

Now, it is worth noting that Star India is a part of 21st Century Fox’s film and entertainment business which has been recently acquired by Walt Disney. According to Business Today, Star’s current high stakes in India will help it to attain a far better spot compared to Disney India.

Disney CEO, Bob Iger had stated, “India represents one of the most high-growth media businesses. [...] They[India] launched a product called Hotstar, which is an over-the-top (OTT) product that we are quite interested in, on top of their channel and more traditional business.”