The Indian Premier Legaue (IPL) is one of the biggest sporting competitions around the world. In terms of valauation, it is only behind USA’s coverted National Football League (NFL). However, given the high amount of value attached to it, stakeholders are always careful about a possible loss which would in turn also be a big number, in case something doens’t click among things other than the actual on-field action.

And now the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has reportedly asked all commentators, players, team owners as well as the content team of the ten participating teams not to share videos and pictures from any part of the stadium on match days. The idea is not to annoy the broadcast-right holders who have paid a hefty amount to hold the broadcasting rights of the competition. The BCCI’s directive comes after an ex-India cricketer apparently clicked a picture of himself commentating and posted it on social media.

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Broadcasters Own The ‘Field Of Play’

A report carried by Indian Express claims highlights that while a commentator’s post through Instagram Live from one of the IPL venues got 1 million views, an IPL team was fined Rs 9 lakh as they posted a video cliop of a live game. This was in direct breach of the content rights as only Star India for television and Viacom 18 for digital- have monopoly over the content of ‘live matches’ as well as the ‘field of play’.

Having said that, the IPL teams have been given a bit of a freedom in the sense that while they cannot share a clip of a live game that they are playing, they can post a limited number of images from the matches.

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“The broadcasters have paid big money for IPL rights. So commentators cannot post videos or photographs on match day on social media. There have been instances where commentators have done an ‘Instagram Live’ or posted a photo from the ground. One video got one million views. Even IPL teams can’t post videos of live games. They can post a limited number of photographs and can give live match updates on their social media platforms. If found guilty, a franchise will be fined,” the Indiann Express reported quited a BCCI official as saying.