Kamal Ghorui
New Delhi: The broadcast rights for the Indian Super League (ISL) 2025-26 season have been awarded to FanCode after their technical and commercial bids edged six other competitors. Kaleidoscope Production and Services (KPS Studios), meanwhile, have been awarded the production rights for the world feed. All India Football Federation (AIFF) opened the bids on Monday having released the Request for Proposal (RFP) tender on January 18.FanCode had shown interest in Packages A, B and D which covered world feed production, linear TV and digital streaming at a combined Rs 8.62 crore. For a 91-match league, that pegs the cost at Rs 9.5 lakh per match. This is in sharp contrast to the Rs 275 crore/season deal that the league enjoyed under the previous commercial partner (Rs 1.68 crore/match).KPS Studios have been awarded the production rights after their bid of Rs 5.75 crore was the lowest for Package E.
FanCode, UK-based Two Circles, Anandabazar Patrika (ABP), JioStar, Monarch with PR Solutions, Sportzworks and Kaleidoscope (KPS Studios) had shown interest in broadcasting and producing the ISL.After two rounds of clarifications, final submissions were received before the February 1 deadline. Sony Sports and Zee Sports had attended the pre-bid meeting but stayed away from making a final push.The AIFF reached a conclusion on the broadcast rights winner on the basis of a combination of technical and commercial bids. After technical bids were evaluated on the basis of broadcast and production experience, infrastructure and cameras, platform reach and prior experience, the process moved to the commercial bids.As per the final scoring formula, the bidders were adjudged on a 70:30 weightage formula with 70% going towards the technical know-how and rest on the financial metric.The current tentative schedule sees the truncated ISL season get underway on February 14 with a double-header between Mohun Bagan SG vs Kerala Blasters and FC Goa vs Inter Kashi. However, the fixture list is subject to changes based on the broadcaster’s requirements.Bids for ISL broadcast packages:FanCode (Package A, B, D): Rs 8.62 croreJioStar (Package D): Rs 5 croreSportzworkz (Package E): Rs 9.5 croreKPS Studios (Package E): Rs 5.75 croreABP Network (Package D, E): Rs 6.89 croreMonarch with PR Solutions (Package D, E): Disqualified for not meeting the net worth criteriaTwo Circles (Package C, D, E): Disqualified for not submitting required monetary despoitISL media rights packages:Package A – World Feed production + linear TV broadcast + digital streamingPackage B – Linear TV broadcast + digital broadcastPackage C – Linear TV broadcast onlyPackage D – Digital broadcast onlyPackage E – World Feed production only
