After Sony Pictures Network lost to Star India in their bid to telecast IPL from the next year, Facebook is now willing to pay a lot of money for broadcasting sporting events. It is very much evident from the fact that the company had bid for $610 million for the rights to stream games of the Indian Premier League, which is considered as the biggest T20 league across the globe for the next five years.
The Indian Premier League announced that the 21st Century Fox’s Star India had won the exclusive rights to stream IPL after a $2.5 billion bid on Monday defeating Facebook who was ranked 2nd in the bidding process. A spokesperson from Facebook didn’t give an immediate response to a comment.
Despite Facebook not winning the streaming rights, their bids have shown how willing they are to pay for the sports especially after Facebook has its new watch hub for life, scripted and episodic video.
CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg said that the company would try licensing sports games with the aim of “creating some anchor content” that helps people think of Facebook as a destination for premium videos.
Facebook eventually intends at moving all of its shows and content deals to an ad revenue sharing model, but as of now, it is clearly comfortable spending money up front. They might well go on to the extent of even hundreds of millions of dollars to secure the internet streaming rights of the mega event.