Sports
Delhi High Court refers JioStar-Absolute Legends Cricket rights dispute to arbitration
A Rs 4-crore row over Legends League Cricket broadcasting rights heads to a sole arbitrator as revenues are frozen
MUMBAI: A broadcasting battle over cricket has landed in arbitration. The Delhi high court has referred a dispute between JioStar India and Absolute Legends Sports over the media and commercial rights of the Legends League Cricket Masters T20 tournament to an arbitral tribunal, after both parties agreed in court to settle their differences outside it.
Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar appointed senior advocate Kamal Nijhawan as sole arbitrator and, in a pointed order, made clear that arbitral proceedings must not be dragged out once parties have consented to the process. The court also froze franchise fee collections and ticket revenues, directing that they remain untouched pending the arbitrator’s further orders.
The row stems from two agreements signed in September 2024, a media rights agreement dated September 16 and an airtime sale agreement dated September 18, under which JioStar secured broadcasting and commercial exploitation rights for the tournament. Both contracts carried arbitration clauses with New Delhi as the seat.
JioStar moved the high court under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act seeking interim relief, claiming Rs 3.59 crore remained unpaid. It alleged that Absolute Legends was attempting to commercially exploit and transfer the league’s rights through a second respondent and third-party platforms, including Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube, in breach of its contractual obligations. The broadcaster sought a deposit of the outstanding dues or equivalent security, restraint orders against any transfer of rights, disclosure of third-party agreements, protection of tournament revenues, and a stay on the termination of the agreements.
The court had already stepped in on March 18, 2026, restraining Absolute Legends from creating third-party rights or otherwise dealing with the tournament’s media and commercial rights. When the matter returned, both sides agreed to arbitrate, prompting the court to dispense with the formality of a separate notice invoking arbitration and skip independent proceedings for appointing an arbitrator altogether.
With the dispute valued at roughly Rs 4 crore, the court kept all rights and objections, including jurisdictional ones, open before the arbitral tribunal. JioStar’s pending interim relief petition will now be treated as an application for interim relief before the arbitrator.
The revenues are frozen, the arbitrator is in place, and the clock is ticking. Cricket rights disputes rarely stay quiet for long.
