Jeff Bezos and Mukesh Ambani, tycoons who have been doing combating for a really long time in India, are set out toward a new conflict over rights to the country’s cricket matches.
This week, the Indian cricket league unveiled guidelines to auction off media rights and they seem designed to raise bids and tensions.
For the first time, the rights to broadcast matches on television and to stream them online will be sold separately, opening the door to Amazon.com Inc. and its Prime video service.
The cricket competition will occur live online throughout the span of two day which means proxies for the two men will have to make minute-by-minute bids and counterbids in real-time.
Imagine a Sotheby’s-style auction with Bezos and Ambani, worth about $275 billion and $100 billion respectively, bidding for a prize that only one can ultimately possess.
Winning streaming rights would represent a prestigious get for Amazon or Reliance. They are both eager to control a large share of digital opportunities in India.
Amazon, with its Prime video service, can face off in the e-auction against Reliance’s Jio telecom subsidiary, which has nearly half a billion subscribers in India.