Valuing broadcast rights in a billion-dollar arbitration

A sublicensing deal over cricket broadcasting worth more than a billion dollars collapsed when the counterparty failed to honour it, leaving our client, a major Indian media company, to fight the case in arbitration. The team at Osborne Partners was brought in to solve a critical question: could the rights still be monetised to match or go beyond the original deal, or had they become a loss-making burden?

Expert:

Chris Osborne

Montek Mayal

Ayush Banka

Back to case studies

Investigate

With an abandoned sublicence, our client carried the burden of broadcasting and monetising the cricket tournament themselves. That meant assessing how much revenue they could realistically generate and whether it would come close to the amount they were originally owed. To answer this question, the team at Osborne Partners dug deep into market data, uncovering how quickly the Indian TV market had declined in just a few years. Rights that once looked secure had in fact become loss-making, with our analysis showing losses approaching $1 billion.

‍

Evaluate

To quantify the scale of loss, we built a detailed model that captured multiple streams of revenue and costs across different points in time, bringing them forward to the assessment date. The challenge was both technical, aligning shifting client projections with market realities, and also practical. Access to granular financial records and people to secure the right information was limited because the client was in the midst of a large-scale merger. However, by combining the evidence available with independent market research, we were able to create a robust framework that reflected the true commercial picture.

‍

Communicate

We delivered interim drafts to share our findings, then distilled them into full expert reports filed with the tribunal. The client’s counsel relied heavily on our analysis, which both clarified the organisation’s position and highlighted the unexpectedly large scale of loss.

‍

Service

Disputes

We provide expert analysis and testimony in high-value litigation and arbitration, covering everything from expropriation and shareholder disputes to complex competition and regulatory cases.

Find out more

Expert

Chris Osborne

Managing Director

Our Managing Director, Chris, brings decades of experience leading expert analysis in high-value disputes and regulatory matters worldwide.

Read full bio

Expert

Montek Mayal

Partner

Montek is Partner and Practice Head for Asia and the Middle East. He is recognised as a Global Elite Thought Leader in arbitration expert witness by Lexology and GAR.

Read full bio