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A file picture of the inaugural of Indian Premier League’, Twenty 20 format in 2007

Debabrata Das

New Delhi, Nov. 2 When the IPL season begins next year, the biggest clash to watch out for will be cricket going head-to-head with Bollywood.

The cash cow that is the Indian Premier League (IPL) is set to swell as it gears up to sell its theatrical telecast rights. On Sunday, the league announced an invitation for tenders for the ‘theatrical telecast rights’ of the matches being played from Season 2010 to 2019.

An IPL spokesperson said, “The bids are open to all. Bidders can be multiplex owners, hotel owners or even bars that have large screening areas. But once the rights are sold by IPL, anyone who wants to screen matches at a public place will need permission from the rights holder.”

The reserve price of the bids has been set at $2 million per year, which is almost Rs 85.5 crore for the full nine-year period.

The only restriction is that a multiplex cannot screen a match being played in that city on the day.

With the April-May period rarely seeing big-budget releases from Bollywood, the IPL season comes at a perfect time for multiplexes to screen matches.

“Traditionally in Bollywood, Diwali and post-Diwali is the time when the biggest blockbusters are released. The April-May movie releases often fail to fill up theatres.

Producers planning movie releases during IPL action are sure to face stiff competition from cricket. The format of the game is perfect, it takes roughly three hours for a match to be played, which is the same as that of an average Bollywood movie,” said a media and entertainment analyst.

Real-estate developer DLF, which screened matches at its malls in Delhi last year, said the match screenings usually received a good response from the public.

“We had screened matches of the Delhi Daredevils playing, as part of a tie-up with the franchisee. The response from the public was good for these matches. Footfalls definitely increased. However, it’s too early to comment on whether we will bid for the rights or not,” said a DLF spokesperson.

PVR also said it was too early to comment and would like to see more details of the bid.

Before the first edition of the IPL was played, television rights to the event were sold for 10 years for about $1.1 billion.

With the number of match screenings increasing rapidly across metros, theatrical right is the latest attempt from IPL to draw maximum returns.

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