There was some provision on tenders that bidders are allowed to bid lower than the base price. This KSR guy is pretty reliable on money numbers, might not be accurate but 99% time he comes very close.
The recent bid was for just 4 years, in comparison to the previous deal which was 8 years (around $2 Billion or something) so it's possible that SONY bid was lower.
This is another thread from him.
https://twitter.com/KShriniwasRao/status/1564226662656626689Anyway, I guess the ICC got more than what they were expecting. Personally I was expecting somewhere in the range of $2.0 to $2.5 billion, given that the reserve price of $1.44 sounded a bit optimistic. Looks as if Disney-Star desperately wanted to win the media rights, since Ten Sports has grabbed the rights to bilateral series with most of the national boards. This bid by Disney-Star just proves how desperate they are. I am interested to know how much the ICC may get from the other regions. US/UK is also a lucrative market and is going in the next round.
After all, they have to keep engaged their 10s of million paid subscribers so desperation is very much understandable. Having said that the way other competitors submitted their bids conservatively, it does seems that Disney really overpaid here, another interesting factor is the timezone of 2024 T-20 WC (USA, WI), it's not suitable for IST.