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No takers for mobile, internet rights of Indian cricket

On Wednesday, the BCCI found, to its disbelief, that there were not many coming forward to buy its properties.

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Has the whitewash in England affected the stocks of Indian cricket? Well, that could be a matter of conjecture but there seems to be some impact of the debacle in England on the marketability of Indian cricket. On Wednesday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) found, to its disbelief, that there were not many coming forward to buy its properties.

The Indian board hoped to “rake in Rs240 crore” by selling its internet and mobile rights for the next 30 months ending March 2014 but there were no takers for the property. When the tender box for the rights was opened at the Cricket Centre here on Wednesday morning, there was only one small bid. These rights, it may be noted, were for the live streaming of international matches in India in the web and mobile phones.

Reliable sources in the board say that the bid was far too lower than what they had hoped for. In fact, the bid, by a media house, was lower than even the base price. The BCCI had fixed Rs3 crore as the base price. The only submitted bid was apparently less than even Rs2 crore.

The members of the marketing committee, who met here on Wednesday, decided to issue a fresh notice inviting tenders for the rights. It was learnt that the committee, headed by Farooq Abdullah, realised that the base price is too high and decided to slash it by Rs1 crore. Before deciding on this, the committee is believed to have consulted BCCI president Shashank Manohar and president-elect N Srinivasan. Neither was present at the meeting.

At the previous marketing committee meeting here on August 16, it was decided that the base price per match should be Rs3 crore. One interested bidder said the price was too high. “There is not too much excitement for internet rights. It is difficult to sell it to the advertisers if the base price is too high,” he said.

The bid was to be for 17 Tests, 29 ODIs and two Twenty20 international fixtures. Among these matches are a high-profile full-fledged series against Pakistan besides matches against England and Australia. As has been its practice, the bids were for one across the board price.

Previously, the rights were with Nimbus, which had purchased all the rights for $612 million in 2006 but in the next bid, the mobile and internet rights were segregated from television rights. The TV rights were sold for Rs 26 crore per match last year.

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