The BCCI is set to lose over Rs 2,000 crore of the broadcast and sponsorship money earmarked for this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) which was indefinitely postponed today due to COVID-19 cases in its bio-bubble.
The Indian cricket body was forced to postpone the IPL after multiple cases of COVID-19 among players and support staff emerged from Ahmedabad and New Delhi in the past couple of days.
A senior BCCI official told PTI that they would be losing between Rs 2,000-2,500 crore for the midway postponement of this season. “I would say something in the range of Rs 2,200 crore will be closer to accurate estimation.” The 52-day 60-match tournament would have concluded in Ahmedabad on May 30. However, only 24 days of cricket was possible with 29 completed games before the virus halted proceedings.
The biggest loss for BCCI is the money it gets from StarSports for the broadcast rights of the tournament. Star has a five-year contract worth Rs 16,347 which is Rs 3269.4 crore per year. If there are 60 games in a season, the per match valuation comes to approximately Rs 54.5 crore. If Star pays per match, then the amount of 29 matches would be Rs 1580 crore approximately out of what would have been Rs 3270 crore for a full tournament. This means a loss of Rs 1690 crore for the Board.
Moreover, mobile manufacturers VIVO, as tournament’s title sponsors pay Rs 440 crore per season and BCCI is likely to get less than half of that amount because of the postponement. And associate sponsor companies like Unacademy, Dream11, CRed, Upstox, and Tata Motors, who pay in the range of Rs 120 crore each.
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The official said that slash all the payments by half or a bit less and you will be reaching a loss in the range of Rs 2200 crore. “The actual losses could be much more but this is a back of the hand calculation for the season.” However, he also said that its difficult to say what kind of sponsorship and co-sponsorship money they earned this season as the economic climate has been pretty hostile.
In regards to the players’ payment, their money is based on duration than pro-rata. If players are available only for part of the tournament, their salaries are paid on pro-rata basis which means assigning an amount to one person according to their share of the whole. But this is applicable only when a player voluntarily makes himself available for only part of the tournament based on the matches available.
