CHENNAI: The Indian Super League this season will finally have a broadcaster. On Monday, Dream Sports Company-owned online digital streaming service FanCode has won the bid to broadcast and stream the truncated 2025/26 season. This was confirmed by All India Football Federation (AIFF) and all for Rs 8.6 crore.
FanCode emerged as the strongest bidder amongst seven other interested parties interested to broadcast in television and stream on their online platform. Meanwhile, KPS Studios won the rights to produce the world feed of the league, being the lowest bidder amongst two bidders.
The Request for Proposal (RFP) to bid for this season's media rights was floated on January 18. A pre-bid conference took place on January 24, with Sony and Zee Media taking part. The last date to submit technical bids was on Sunday, February 1. It was learnt that both Sony and Zee requested more time to submit their bids, which the AIFF had declined. There were seven bidders in all.
Companies were judged on a quality and cost model where 70 per cent weightage was given to technical capabilities and 30 per cent to financial strength. As per the RFP, companies worth Rs 10 crore and have broadcasting experience of top-tier leagues for three straight years are qualified as bidders.
The AIFF will be relieved to have roped in a broadcaster for this season. However, the value of its media rights has come down crashing this year from last year. Jio/Viacom had paid Rs 275 crore for 163 matches for the 2024/25 ISL season and each match was worth Rs 1.68 crore. This season, that could come as Rs 8.6 crore for 91 matches. Each match may be worth around Rs 9.5 lakh.
The media rights are divided into five packages for companies to bid. Package A involves production of the world feed, TV broadcast and streaming on a digital platform. Package B is TV broadcast and streaming on digital platform. Package C is just TV Broadcast, D is just digital streaming, and finally, E is only production of the world feed. The bid evaluation committee of the AIFF ranks bids in the descending order for packages A to D. For E, it looks at the lowest bidder to pay for production of the league. This way, FanCode had won the bid for Package B, while KPS studios was the lowest bidder for Package E.
FanCode has the experience of streaming top international football competitions like La Liga and European football cup competitions (Spanish Copa del Rey and EFL Cup in England for example). It also streams premier motorsport events Formula 1 and MotoGP.
FanCode's co-founder Yannic Colaco expressed delight over bagging the rights. “The Indian Super League is a significant addition, as it represents the very best of Indian football. With the league’s strong and loyal fan following, we see a big opportunity to elevate how fans experience ISL through reliable, high-quality broadcast and a product designed around modern football audiences,” he stated.
Along with FanCode, Jio, Anand Patrika Bazar, UK-based Two Circles studios, KRP Studios, Sportzworkz and Monarch PR had taken part in the commercial bid.
Due to non-payment of the security deposit to take part in the process and not meeting the criteria, Two Circles were removed from the bidding process. Jio, it is learnt, had bid only for digital streaming (Package D).
In addition to the streaming website, FanCode also has a channel only on Tataplay, a Direct to Home (DTH) service provider. Sources have indicated that the company has began talks to sub-license the TV broadcast. "We also may expand our own channel to other DTH providers," said the source.
When the kickoff date of February 14 was announced, Union sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya had said that if the AIFF don't find a broadcaster, he had said that he would request public broadcaster Prasar Bharti to broadcast the truncated ISL season.