The first e-auction of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s media rights will take place on Tuesday. This will be the first time that traditional sports broadcasters will be getting jitters from Google and Facebook.

The global tech giants will contest for the rights alongside two established broadcasters, Star India and Sony Pictures Network India, and streaming service YuppTV with Reliance Jio also in the fray. On 3rd April, the BCCI will evaluate the "technical and financial feasibility" of the six parties involved in the auction before it kicks off the bidding process at 8:30 am (GMT).

Star India, which runs Star Sports and Hotstar, already has media rights for IPL, ICC, ACC, cricket in New Zealand and Bangladesh, and regional T20 tournaments like Tamil Nadu Premier League and Karnataka Premier League. Sony has rights to seven cricket boards namely, Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies, England, Australia, Zimbabwe, and Pakistan alongside rights to T20 tournaments like the Caribbean Premier League and Big Bash League.

The global television rights and rest of the world digital rights (GTVRD); the digital rights for the Indian subcontinent (ID); and the global consolidated rights (GCR) are the three categories of the media rights. The winner of the rights would broadcast a total of 102 matches from June 2018 to March 2023 which includes 22 Tests, 45 ODIs and 35 T20s against nine opponents, barring Pakistan and Ireland.

Facebook, after losing out to Star in the auction for IPL rights IPL in September last year, will have another competitor from the tech companies, Google, this time in the upcoming auction. Star India had roped in the broadcast rights for a whopping $2.55 billion.

According to Saurabh Uboweja, an international brand expert, Star India will face harder competition this time around on the digital rights front, compared to the last auction where no one bothered with digital rights.

Uboweja reportedly said, “Star will also go aggressive but their IPL strategy won’t work this time. Sony will be more desperate and it has developed a strong sports portfolio. But if Star gets the BCCI rights, there will be a monopolization of cricket rights and consumers will end up shelling out more by virtue of rising subscription fees. Star is the only entity capable of going for global rights and I feel has an unfair advantage.

“For them, there will be an incentive to replicate their IPL strategy and there will be economies of scale but the even big entity like Star will have to keep a check on its spending.”