Some could also argue that Disney played their cards rights and didn't go along with other broadcaster agenda, which was to take auction to e-auction.
The intention from Reliance and others was to take it to the second round (e-auction). In order to avoid it, Disney-Star had to make sure that there is more than 10% difference with the second ranking bid. And IMO, I don't think that they overpaid by much. If the 5-year IPL bid can go for $6 billion, then I don't think that $3-4 billion for 4-year ICC deal is overrated. ICC tournaments have their own aura, and people like me hardly watch IPL nowadays. IPL is getting repetitive and too lengthy. ICC tournaments have the "fresh" feeling and their duration is optimal.
Because at the end of the day they paid way too much if we are considering only a 10% threshold limit.
@JSRAW I disagree here because Disney could lose user’s and the OTT platform is very lucrative, hence if Disney can strike some good ad deals then they’ll be able to get nice profits in the long run, and thanks to this deal they’re now bound to get new user’s and even existing user’s will probably renew their subscriptions.
@Sithara007 not sure if Disney actually thought like you did, therefore my theory yet remains the same that Disney did it because they knew that they could actually recover the money, and earn profits as OTT ads are very lucrative.