Fears about the process of e-auction and the value of Indian cricket matches proved unfounded as Star India, Sony Pictures Network and Jio Infocomm’s tussle for BCCI’s media rights for the next five years has resulted in a record value for the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

In a massive leap, the bidding via e-auction for BCCI media rights touched a whopping Rs 6032.5 crore at the end of Wednesday, second day of the process.

With the Indian team set to play 102 games at home in this cycle from April 15, 2018 to March 31, 2023, it means even at this value, BCCI will be paid around Rs 59.14 crore per match. And, the bidding is not over yet.

It has already exceeded the per match value of Indian Premier League. In IPL, BCCI is paid around Rs 54.49 crore per match, though the overall value of the T20 league (Rs 16,347.5 crore) is unmatched because it has more matches.

After testing the waters over the first day-and-a-half, one of the parties (identity is secret in e-auction) made everyone at BCCI office jump out of their seats with a bid of ₹5488 crore, more than ₹900 crore higher than the previous one. In response, a bid of ₹5748 crore followed and the figure had jumped by more than Rs 1300 crores from the closing bid (Rs 4442 crore) received by the end of the first day.

Overall, it’s going to be a massive jump. Star India had paid Rs 3851 crore for the media rights from 2012 to 2018, for 96 matches, at Rs 43 crore per game.

The bidding opened on Tuesday at Rs 4176.00 crore, next bid received was at Rs 4201.20 crore, and Rs 4244.00 crore. It moved up to Rs 4303.00 crore and Rs 4328.25 crore. Rs 4442.00 crore was the last bid received on Day 1.

There were some reservations expressed over the decision to go for e-auction, but it has been a stunning success. The wide grin on BCCI CEO Rahul Johri’s face when action picked up mid-afternoon on Wednesday said it all. He has been under fire along with the Committee of Administrators for taking the call.

Experts had predicted that Sony and Star will face stiff competition from Reliance’s Jio if they decided to pitch in for the consolidated bid and the script seems to be holding true. Apart from its digital platform, the Reliance group has started showing sports on its TV channel, MTV, where the League Cup final between Manchester City and Arsenal was aired recently.