US Giant Pulls Out Of 60,000-Crore IPL Rights Race.

According to sources, Amazon is planning to withdraw from a heated competition for the rights to stream IPL cricket matches. Disney Co. and Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd. are among Amazon's competitors.

IPL rights were estimated to fetch an unprecedented $7.7 billion. The US giant plans to throw in the towel rather than get into a bidding war.

In spite of Amazon's investment of over $6 billion in the nation, they said it didn't make business sense to spend more on merely streaming rights to the league online.

Representatives for Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Due to Amazon's surprise withdrawal, Disney, Reliance, and Sony Group Corp. will be able to increasingly dominate the Indian consumer market online. Whichever company wins the deal could also solidify its position as a leading media entity in a country of 1.4 billion where English sport enjoys cult status.

Amazon, which identified IPL among a half-dozen global sports franchises it's interested in, had initially been determined to score a victory, Bloomberg News reported. The retail titan has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on European soccer rights and has forged a deal to broadcast Thursday Night Football in the US at $1 billion a season until 2033.