The Indian Premier League governing council on Tuesday decided that there will be two concurrent matches for the first time in the tournament's history. (More Cricket News)
The last two T20 league matches before the IPL 2021 playoffs will be played concurrently. On the last day of the league stage (October 8), instead of having one afternoon match and one evening match, two matches (SRH v MI and RCB v DC) will be played simultaneously from 7.30 PM IST.
The norm so far has been one game at 3:30 PM IST followed by an evening match at 7:30 PM IST. But now the games will start at the same time in order to avoid giving an unfair advantage to any team in case the last match has a team with a mathematical chance of making the IPL 2021 playoffs.
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IPL MEDIA RIGHTS
The BCCI also announced that the tender for IPL Media Rights (2023-2027 cycle) will be released immediately after the appointment of the two new IPL teams on October 25.
According to media reports, six cities have been shortlisted for the two new teams which will join from the 2022 edition of IPL. The cities are: Cuttack, Guwahati, Ranchi, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Dharamshala.
The current IPL broadcast and digital rights are with STAR Sports. In 2017, STAR India paid a staggering INR 16347 Crores (USD 2.33 billion) to bag the rights for five years.
With two additional teams and extra number of matches, the IPL rights are expected to fetch the BCCI a record INR 20,000 Crore (USD 4-5 billion). STAR is likely to face stiff contest from SONY-ZEE combine and channels owned by Reliance group.
