Bangalore, May 30: The BCCI – which had ended up with some egg on its face after being unable to find a sponsor for the Indian cricket team at the end of 2009 – fared marginally better in the fresh round with two players submitting bids. The bids were submitted by heavyweights Sahara and Bharti Airtel.
According to a report on Cricinfo, both parties bought the tender document at the last possible minute before the submission deadline and both have also submitted the mandatory Rs. 50 crore deposit required by the BCCI.
The BCCI had issued the tender on Monday, with the tenure set at three and a half years, starting from July 1, 2010.
There were reportedly other companies in the reckoning, including the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), Videocon, sports broadcaster Nimbus who own the rights to matches played in India, and advertising firm Percept.
However, the high value of money that had to be committed (as much as Rs. 400 crore) was a deterrent, as not many wanted to commit that sum on their own. ADAG reportedly approached Nimbus to form a consortium, but the extremely short time span between the BCCI putting out the tender inviting bids and the closure, meant that this didn’t happen.
“They released the tender on Monday and all the bids need to go in by Saturday, which is just about four working days by the time the tender was in hand. That is not very easy to work out when you are trying to get people to commit to Rs 400 crore,” a source was quoted as saying.
This is bound to give fresh rise to speculations that the BCCI wanted certain parties kept out of the bidding process, and therefore put forth the process in such a way that only a few would be able to meet the requirements.
The BCCI has set a base price of Rs 2.5 crore per match for a three-and-a-half year period, during which India will be playing between 144 and 167 matches, depending on how far the team progresses in the ICC tournaments.
This was a little bit of a climb-down from the tender that found no takers last year, when the base price was set at Rs. 3 crore per match.
At that time, the Sahara Group had agreed to extend its sponsorship of the team for six more months on its previous terms – which will get over on June 30.
Hiren Pandit, Managing Partner-Entertainment, Sports and Partnerships at Group M, a leading media buying agency, said that the climb-down in prices represents the “impact of the IPL”, since the advent of the T20 league has given companies other avenues to be associated with cricket.
However, the current price is also a very steep one. One bidder was quoted as saying, “Anyone who bags the rights will have to spend on an average 125 crore annually only on this. That is a huge amount of money.”
However, Shailendra Singh, joint managing director, Percept Limited, which had reportedly purchased the bid document for a client, says the Indian team is still the best cricket brand around. “From a value perspective, the sport of cricket stands unparalleled as a property for sponsors today,” he said. “For any fan, especially in India, the national team is the ultimate. People follow IPL because you have the cricketers from the Indian team playing, they are the main attraction. Hence this in no way reduces the importance or following of Team India. Team India will be one of the best cricket properties always.”
The BCCI will announce the winning bid after holding its marketing committee meeting in Mumbai on Monday.
——–Agencies