The BCCI’s Ouroboros economy
Indian cricket has never looked richer. The money now gathers around the properties that draw time and value away from bilateral cricket.
Ask a media buyer in Mumbai what Indian cricket is worth this month, and the answer depends on what is being sold. Apollo Tyres is paying Rs 4.5 crore a match for the logo on India’s jersey. Google Gemini has committed roughly Rs 270 crore over three years for an Indian Premier League (IPL) sponsorship slot. The title rights to India’s home internationals, once the cleanest commercial shorthand for cricket’s power in this country, went to tender in July and found no acceptable bid.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) set the base price at Rs 4.85 crore a match, according to Cricbuzz, 15.5% above the Rs 4.2 crore per international match IDFC First Bank paid under the expiring agreement. SBI Life, already an official partner one tier below, looked and passed. Gemini, prominent in the IPL’s new AI-branding push, walked away too, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Spinny, the used-car marketplace named in media reports as a possible bidder, stayed out.
Three lower-priced associate slots, opened after the title sponsor process to manage category clashes, drew five interested parties, according to another person familiar with the process. Indian cricket still had buyers. The title rights, at that price, did not.
Gemini is now negotiating directly with the BCCI, according to a person aware of the discussions. If a deal closes, the number is expected to land below the Rs 4.85 crore ask that found no buyer. Sponsorship numbers at this scale are usually sounded out with likely bidders before a tender goes public. This time, the BCCI still set the number too high.
The BCCI did not respond to The State of Play's questions about the title rights tender.
The ouroboros, the ancient image of a snake eating its own tail, fits because Indian cricket’s richest properties now feed on the bilateral game that helped build them. The IPL has taken dates from the international calendar, while the jersey and digital rights capture much of the growth. Bilateral cricket remains attached, still saleable in smaller pieces, increasingly the part being eaten.
India’s sports economy crossed $2 billion for the first time in 2025, reaching Rs 18,864 crore, up 13.4% on the year before, according to WPP Media’s Sporting Nation report, published in March. Cricket accounted for 89% of that market, its highest share on record, with Rs 16,704 crore. The report credited the rise to the IPL, the Women’s Premier League (WPL), and India’s run of ICC trophies. Growth came through premiumisation, the industry term for brands paying more for the same amount of cricket. The money left behind by real-money gaming was largely absorbed by the IPL and the WPL. In the richest year Indian sport has recorded, bilateral cricket was barely part of the growth story.
