Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani has seen off competition from global media giants to bag the rights to stream the IPL for $2.6-billion.

Star India, meanwhile, owned by US behemoth Disney, retained the TV rights for the next five seasons of the IPL, one of the world’s most watched sporting events.

Together the two deals are reportedly worth about $5.65bn, dwarfing the $2.55bn that Star paid in 2017 for digital and TV rights for the previous five seasons of the annual two-month T20 contest.

Two other packages, for the international broadcast of the league and non-exclusive rights for certain matches, were still being auctioned off on Tuesday by the BCCI.

For his bid, Ambani, Asia’s richest man, created the Viacom18 joint venture with US giant Paramount Global and an investment group backed by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s son James.

Sony, which televised the IPL for the first 10 years after its inception in 2008, had been in the race to get a share of the competition, which recently completed its 15th edition.

Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on rights for European soccer and American football, had earlier reportedly shown interest in the IPL but pulled out.

© Agence France-Presse