Archana Vijaya Excited As Star Secure IPL Media Rights
Sep 5, 2017 at 5:51 PM
In a watershed moment for Indian cricket, Star, on Monday (September 4) pipped Sony Pictures Network to acquire the IPL media rights, including both TV and digital rights for five years (2018-2022), with a large global bid of INR 16,347.50 crores (USD 2.55 billion).
The mind-boggling amount got everyone buzzing on the social media and renowned sports anchor Archana Vijaya also could not hide her excitement as she took to Twitter to express it. Archana, who made a comeback to the IPL sidelines last year after a couple of years gap, congratulated Star, writing: “WOW ! Just came on to Twitter and learnt of @StarSportsIndia bagging the #IPLrights . Congratulations ! Upwards and onwards!”
WOW ! Just came on to Twitter and learnt of @StarSportsIndia bagging the #IPLrights . Congratulations ! Upwards and onwards! 🚀
— Archana Vijaya (@archanavijaya) September 4, 2017
Meanwhile, the fans sounded a bit disappointed as it is still unclear whether Archana would be hosting the show in the upcoming edition of the IPL. She was a prominent member of Sony’s pre-match and post-match shows but only time will tell whether Star would rope her in for the next season.
Without u ipl will be incomplete, SS don't do this to us
— Nitesh Mesta (@Nitu_Mesta) September 4, 2017
https://twitter.com/rah_900/status/904757671839928320
You're needed on SS. Show will be too dull otherwise 🤷🏻♂️
— ₿hargav (@ThatIndianGuy) September 4, 2017
But, what's more amusing is the prediction/analysis of my future on my timeline ! Haha! 🤣🤣🤣
— Archana Vijaya (@archanavijaya) September 4, 2017
Meanwhile, after bagging the lucrative media rights of the league Uday Shankar, CEO of Star, expressed his delight,
“I’d just like to convey my delight at being finally able to bring the IPL to what we believe is the rightful home for cricket in this country and elsewhere. We would also like to thank BCCI for choosing us as their appropriate partners. We compliment BCCI for running such an immaculately transparent process,” Uday Shankar said.
https://twitter.com/IPL/status/904620781354631168
“IPL is a very powerful property… We would remain very committed for the growth of sports in country and hope it would be driven by the power of cricket. It was a conscious call to bid for global rights, we have presence on all forms, it made sense for us to win it for all the markets. Everyone picked up their strength and aspiration, and went for it,” he added.
The amount paid for the next five years’ media rights is huge compared to the last media rights. In 2008 that is the inaugural season of the tournament, Sony Pictures Network had won the IPL media rights for ten years for an amount of 8200 crores while the global digital rights of IPL was handed over to Novi Digital (three years) in 2015 for 302.2 crores.