Viacom18 Bags have earned the media rights for the inaugural five-year cycle of the upcoming Women’s IPL, BCCI Secretary Jay Shah shared the news by tweeting on Monday (January 16). The winning bid was INR 951 crore which means a value of INR 7.09 crore per match for the 2023-27 period. The BCCI also confirmed that Viacom18 was the successful bidder for the media rights among others.
Notably, the Network 18-owned media house has also secured digital rights to the Men’s IPL for the same cycle as well and also the ongoing SA20 League in South Africa as well.
“I would like to congratulate Viacom18 for bagging the media rights for Women’s IPL for the period of 5 years,” BCCI president Roger Binny said. “Women’s cricket has been on the up since a few years and the recently concluded bilateral series against Australia is a great testament to how popular women’s cricket has become in India.”
After pay equity, today's bidding for media rights for Women's IPL marks another historic mandate. It's a big and decisive step for empowerment of women's cricket in India, which will ensure participation of women from all ages. A new dawn indeed! #WIPL @ICC @BCCIWomen
— Jay Shah (@JayShah) January 16, 2023
“It was only apt to get our own women’s T20 league and give the fans more of women’s cricket. I would also like to congratulate the BCCI leadership and its workforce for a successful media rights process and wish them the very best for the first edition of the Women’s IPL.”
However, the inaugural season of the Women’s league will be a five-team double round-robin tournament as well, tentatively scheduled for March 2023. The BCCI as per the report by Cricbuzz earlier will conduct the auction for the WIPL franchises on January 25 and the Manchester United group is one of the foreign parties to have confirmed to own aside as well. The deadline for the cricketers to register for the player auction is January 26 as well.
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