Leads to absolute control over cricket.

Competition Commission of India (CCI) assessed that the 8. 5 billion India merger of Reliance and Walt Disney assets affects the competition due to their power over cricket broadcast rights, as per a Reuters report on Tuesday. CCI has already warned Reliance and Disney sharing the concerns over this merging and asked the companies for an explanation on the ignorance of why an initial probe wasn’t made on this matter.

This is going to be a major setback for all the other planned mergers, that focus on creating India’s humongous entertainment player combating with Zee Entertainment, Netflix, Sony and Amazon within 120 TV channels and 2 streaming services. However, Disney and Reliance didn’t respond to the requests for comment as the sources refused to disclose their names due to CCI policies and confidential process.

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CCI Concerns: Major Points 

• • It raises fear and concern over pricing power as it grapples with advertisers
  • The major share is owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance along with broadcasting rights for cricket on streaming Platforms seeking attention that it may give lucrative rights to decide rates.
  • Reliance-Disney may own TV cricket rights and all digital rights for IPL.
  • Reliance-Disney explained that the rights cannot be sold at this time as it is set to expire in 2027- 2028 and will not compromise on cricket rights.
  •  Any transfer of these rights is carried by the Cricket Board approval which leads to further delay.
  • The companies can address concerns by offering more concessions even if CCI delay the process.
  • This merger will harm the competition and the offered concessions are not enough for CCI.
  • Disney and Reliance aim to dominate as No. 1 in entertainment, which seemed to be a monopoly through the merger.
  • This entity can hike rates for advertisers even during live events.
  • Leads to absolute control over cricket.

According to a financial service company, the Disney-Reliance entity will have a 40% share of the advertising market in TV and streaming platforms.

Since India has a fanatic following in cricket having a ballpark of 612 million people, these combined broadcast rights escalate tensions that it will harm competition as Reliance-Disney-owned digital and TV cricket rights may lead to further rate hikes and control over one of the most loved sports in India.

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