The Board of Control for Cricket in India included new media rights in its global tender for India national team matches in an attempt to achieve a higher rights fee.
The governing body will publish an invitation to tender for its rights on March 10, with bids to be submitted by April 2. The rights include all India national team Test, one-day international and Twenty20 matches held in the country, as well as some domestic tournaments, covering the six-year period from 2012-13 to 2017-18.
The board has set a price of Rs322.5 million (€4.9 million/$6.5 million) per India match for 2012-13 and 2013-14, rising to Rs340 million per match for the next four years, according to the IndianTelevision website.
The prices include Rs10 million for internet and mobile rights, which were not included in the previous deal with the Nimbus Communications agency, the previous rights-holder. The television rights and new media rights do not have to be acquired by the same company.
Nimbus paid an average of Rs312.5 million per match. The board decided to scrap Nimbus’s four-year deal, from 2010-11 to 2013-14, with two years still left to run due to the agency allegedly failing to pay rights fees on time.
BCCI marketing committee chairman Farooq Abdullah said the deal could be carved up into two separate time periods, one covering 2012-13 to 2013-14 and the other for 2014-15 to 2017-18.
“The new tender will give a chance for new people to come in. They can bid either for the whole thing or in parts. It will enable people to come in larger numbers. We expect to generate more interest,” Abdullah said.
He added: “The contract with Nimbus has ended. The difficulties and deficiencies in the previous tender were looked into and rectified, and care has been taken to ensure those are not repeated in the new tender.”