Mobile disrupter Reliance Jio, Amazon India, Times Internet, GroupM, Facebook and Twitter have already purchased the documents to bid for TV and digital rights for the twenty20 cricket league from 2018-2022, according to Live Mint.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) invited bids for five years of IPL media rights in September 2016, however the process was postponed while a panel appointed by the Supreme Court looked into alleged tender irregularities.

The BCCI re-opened the bidding process on 21 July, with a deadline to buy bid documents set at 24 August. The bidding process closes on 28 August when the bids will be opened in the presence of the bidders’ representatives and result announced.

The last IPL mobile and Internet rights were won in February 2015, when Star India bid over INR3 billion for a three-year period to stream matches on its digital platform Hotsta .

“When Star bought the rights, the data services were much slower compared with now. Now we have 3G and 4G being used actively. From a consumption standpoint, the alternate screen story has only gotten stronger with more eyeballs. So the rights will be sold for a big sum,” Hiren Pandit, CEO of TransStadia, a sports infrastructure firm, told LiveMint.

Although YuppTV has had limited sports content, recently it bought exclusive digital rights for the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 for Canada and the non-exclusive digital rights for Continental Europe.

“IPL is the highest viewed sports property. If you’re launching into sports online you’d want to start with IPL. I’d imagine companies like Reliance, Discovery, Amazon, Star will bid aggressively,” added Pandit.

Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) India, formerly Multi Screen Media, is the current holder of the IPL television broadcast rights.