Indian Cricket - A Global Money Spinner

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On April 01, 2006, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the governing body for cricket in India, said that it had awarded the contract for the ground rights^[1] for the India- Pakistan Friendship Series to Percept D’ Mark International (PDM). PDM had bid US$ 3.61 million to win the ground rights for this two match series, to be played at Abu Dhabi on April 18 and April 19 of 2006. Earlier PDM had also won the television rights for this series.

A few days earlier, on March 28, 2006, BCCI announced a call for tenders for global media rights for cricket matches that would be played by India at neutral venues in non-International Cricket Council^[2] member countries. Some of the venues included in this list were Abu Dabhi, Sharjah, Dubai, Toronto, New York, Houston, Chicago, Palo Alto (and bay area), Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong.

Lalit Modi (Modi), vice-president BCCI and chairman of its marketing sub-committee, said, “This is a unique opportunity for brands to not only reach out to the Indian communities overseas but also promote their brand in a unique manner where, for the first time, all rights are being offered to a single company.”^[3]

Sports management experts pointed out that most of these venues had a large proportion of expatriates from the Indian subcontinent and BCCI was leveraging this opportunity to further increase its revenues. BCCI was the richest sports body in India and one of the richest sports bodies in the world. Moreover, after Sharad Pawar (Pawar) was elected as BCCI’s new president in November 2005, the body had been actively seeking to multiply its revenues and become the world’s richest sporting body.

Modi said, “All in all the BCCI properties will be worth over $1.5 billion dollars over the next four years, compared with a few million dollars it has earned over the last few years. It’s huge growth by any standards in any sport. The BCCI is going to be the richest sporting organization.” 
 

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^[1] Ground rights include the rights to sponsor logos on tickets, stadium entry gates, ground logos, logos on stumps, etc.

^[2] The International Cricket Council (ICC) was the governing body for international test match and one-day cricket. The ICC had 10 Full Members that played official Test matches, 32 Associate Members, and 54 Affiliate Members.

^[3] “BCCI calls for tenders for ‘neutral venue’ media rights,” http://www.indiantelevision.com, March 28, 2006.