IPL-IV puts broadcasters on slippery wicket

Published>Mon, Sep 06 10 02:51 AM

With the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) cutting down 20 matches in IPL-4 from what was originally planned, broadcasters and franchise owners may lose a minimum of Rs 250 crore in revenue from advertisers, sponsors and gate receipts. Also, BCCI is doing away with the 'home and away' format for IPL-4 that will drastically reduce the revenue generated from stadium tickets for franchisees, sources in existing IPL franchisees said.

Instead of 94 matches between 10 IPL franchise teams envisaged for IPL-4 by the former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, the BCCI has now announced that there will be only 74 matches in the next edition. This means, each of the 10 IPL franchise teams, including the two new teams from Kochi and Pune, will get to play seven matches before the semi-finals, final and the one match for deciding the third-place team.

This means that IPL-4 will not be played on the 'home and away' format. In the previous editions, each of the teams had a home match where it played a majority of its league matches thereby generating revenue from the sale of stadium tickets and local sponsorships.

Also, for the host broadcast ? Sony Entertainment Television ? IPL-4 will mean fewer matches than what was envisaged earlier. "On an average, each IPL match telecast on television fetched the broadcaster between Rs 10-14 crore. Less matches mean a potential loss of revenue for the host channel," a senior media planner said. "Considering the host channel has to pay nearly Rs 400 crore as rights fees to the BCCI, less matches will mean a definite loss in potential revenue as there is a limit to which Sony can squeeze in the sponsors," he said.

However, BCCI took into consideration the all round concerns generated by several international cricket boards and key international players that 94 matches will be 'too-much' in IPL-4, sources told FE.

BCCI is expected to split the teams into two groups with each team to play seven matches before the knock-out stages. "If there are two groups, then initially, there may be two-rounds of matches for each group. In the first round, each team in a group plays each other once and then may be the top-four teams from each group will play each other once before the semi-final stage," an IPL franchise executive said.

"With two additional franchise teams added to the fray, Sahara Warriors of Pune and yet-unnamed Kochi franchise, a continuation of the 'home and away' format would mean a total of 94 matches which the Council members did not find feasible," a top IPL functionary said.

Among the other major decisions taken on Sunday by the IPL governing council were the retention of players for next few seasons by the original eight franchises and date of the next players' auction.

The IPL governing council decided that a total of four players can be retained by each franchise, which includes a maximum of three Indian players. The players' auction would be held in the second week of November.

Also, there will be a cap of $9 million to spend at the next players' auction but this amount would get reduced with retention of players. At the inaugural players' auction held here in February, 2008, each franchise had $5 million to spend. Another $2 million was the cap for the second auction held in Goa and for the third auction, held again in Mumbai, each franchise was allowed to spend only $7,50,000.

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