ISL 2025-26 – Indian Super League attracts ABP, FanCode and Jio among media rights bidders

The All India Football Federation (AIFF) has received at least four bids for media rights for the upcoming season of the Indian Super League (ISL), with the deadline for bids ending late on Sunday, February 1.

Calcutta-based conglomerate Anandabazar Patrika (ABP) and FanCode, JioStar and Kaleidoscope Production and Services (KPS Studios), owned by Dream Sports, are the confirmed bidders, while ZEE and Sony – two business groups that had earlier shown interest – have opted not to make their bids.

The AIFF had released the Request For Proposal (RFP) for this ISL season’s media rights partner on January 18, and another meeting was scheduled on January 23 for clarifications ahead of the bid.

Sony, ZEE, FanCode and British media group Two Circles attended the meeting and raised several questions about the flexibility of the deadline, the minimum camera setup and a range of packages to choose from should a party decide to take over partial rights.

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One of the parties wanted an extension of the deadlines; clarifications will be moved from January 27 to 29 and for bid submission from February 1 to 4. However, the Federation rejected the requests.

The AIFF has also detailed five media rights packages from ISL 2025-26, which can also be used as combinations:

Package A: Production of the World Feed, broadcast (on linear television) and streaming (on a digital platform)

Package B: Broadcast (on linear television) and streaming (on a digital platform);

Package C: broadcast only (on linear television).

Package D: Streaming only (on a digital platform).

Package E: World Feed production only.

It is understood that both ABP Group and FanCode will likely prefer package D+E, while KPS Studios has only sought production (package E).

Based in West Bengal, KPS Studios has been working with other media partners primarily in a B2B model for the past five years. It was responsible for producing all I-League matches in the 2022-2023 season and recently produced all matches in the 2025-2026 Bengal Super League.

For ABP, however, it could mark its first major expansion into sports broadcasting, with the group previously partnering with Star Sports as the official non-exclusive broadcaster for Legends Cricket League in 2024.

FanCode was previously a regular player in the football broadcasting market, covering both Indian and international football.

It streamed the recently concluded Africa Cup of Nations, while the CAFA Nations Cup, where India finished third, was also shown on FanCode.

Additionally, India’s AFC Asian Cup qualifiers against Hong Kong, China (June 10), Singapore (October 9) and Bangladesh (November 18) were all featured on the platform.

Jio’s return to the scheme of things also makes the bidding grid interesting. Reliance-owned Jio – which subsequently owned the ISL until December 8, 2025 – was among the interested bidders in the previous RFP, the deadline for which expired in December last year.

However, the conglomerate ultimately decided not to make an offer.

The ISL was initially broadcast on Star Sports and streamed on Disney + Hotstar, but Viacom – again owned by Reliance – had acquired the ISL’s exclusive media rights for television and live streaming at the base price (fee was not disclosed) for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons.

The current scenario is very different from the previous cycle of RFP submission by AIFF where no bids were submitted despite the extension of the submission deadline.

The upcoming season will start on February 14, as confirmed by Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, while the AIFF preliminary schedule states that Mohun Bagan Super Giant will take on Kerala Blasters in the opening match at the Salt Lake Stadium.

Published on February 1, 2026