'IPL media rights, a case study for the entire world'

Media rights fetched the BCCI Rs 48,390 crore, with Disney-Star bagging TV rights for the Indian Subcontinent and Viacom18/ Reliance sweeping the digital segment. (File)

“IPL media rights is a case study for the entire world to understand where the OTT industry is going,” believes Jean Francois Pigeon, Global EVP & Head of Sales-Marketing at Synamedia.

Pigeon, who was recently in India and has been helping clients such as Star India to launch and monetize streaming services, protect content and services from piracy and add addressable advertising with business insights, spoke highly on the matter of IPL and India in an interview with e4m.

“India is a massive content creator, people love to scale up businesses. Due to lots of constraints, innovations come naturally to India. India is pushing the world to the limits. We have a lot of lessons to learn from India.”

The IPL media rights took over the world news feeds when the new digital rights for the tournament left behind the TV media rights. Pigeon believes this to be a significant moment not just in the sports industry but in the OTT landscape.

“It is for the first time that the value of digital rights of a sports tournament has surpassed that of TV broadcast rights,” he said.

“The media rights of IPL matches that are played out in India are fascinating. Sports has always been premium content across the globe. OTT was not a natural platform for sports viewership. It’s perfect for linear TV. However, the concept of sports telecasts going digital-first is mind-twisting. Cricket lovers are losing interest in watching the matches on TV due to frequent unwanted ads and sports OTT is growing due to the same reasons.”

The latest media rights figures for IPL put it next to only the NFL in terms of per match distribution, overtaking major players of the industry such as the Premier League, Champions League, La Liga, etc. With the big numbers comes the onus to avoid barriers such as piracy, something Synamedia has been working on with multiple brands in India.

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“India is a fascinating market,” the CEO said.

“What is being paid for a match is second only to the US’s National Football League (NFL). It’s above NBA, English leagues and other professional leagues around the world. The broadcasters and streaming providers will need to protect the content as piracy is going to be a big issue for such premium content. We are actively engaging with many Indian players in this space to discuss this topic.”

Among the many methods being deployed to help their client’s interest, Synamedia tech has also ensured that the access of the content is only restricted to authorised users. Something that will be of key interest to Viacom18, who nabbed the streaming rights for the tournament.

“Our technology also ensures that only authorized users can access the content,” Pigeon said.

“Subscribers often share credentials with their friends. Unauthorized access to OTT content dents a huge revenue of media players.”

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