MUMBAI - The media rights auction for the world's richest cricket league, which has media giants like Disney and Sony Corp vying for broadcast rights that could fetch India's cricket board upwards of $6 billion, has spilled over into the third day, a board official said on Monday.

The online auction for television and digital broadcast rights from 2023 to 2027 to the Indian Premier League, the hugely popular two-month cricket league that draws top television ratings, began on Sunday morning and continued all day on Monday as well.

The auction was likely to conclude on Tuesday, the official who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media on this subject, told Reuters.

The high-stakes bidding war has Viacom 18, Reliance Industries' broadcasting joint venture, Sony Corp's India Unit and Disney, which currently owns the television and digital rights, all fighting for a piece of the cricketing pie.

The current digital and television rights are held by Star India, now owned by Walt Disney Co, which paid 163.48 billion rupees ($2.09 billion) in 2017.

(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly and Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai, Editing by Tomasz Janowski)