Zee bags rights to telecast Sri Lanka Tests

Zee Sports has secured the satellite television rights for the three-Test series between India and Sri Lanka beginning December 2 in Chennai, beating rival contenders ESPN and Nimbus. The terrestrial broadcast will be done by Doordarshan.

However, the larger issue of the long-term television rights remains. The reason the rights have been awarded on a series-by-series basis is because the conflict between Zee TV and ESPN-Star over the rights is still in court. But with the BCCI elections ushering in a new regime that has spoken mostly of transparency and professionalism, the impasse could end. Zee TV had earlier complained of a lack of transparency and accused the board of favouring ESPN-Star. Today, after being awarded the rights for the series, Himanshu Mody, the business head of Zee Sports, declared, "We are delighted to acquire the cable and satellite rights for Test series between India and Sri Lanka. In an open and transparent meeting with the BCCI, in which all bidders were present, we managed to secure the rights for the series."

Lalit Modi, the president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, who has been involved in the BCCI's television rights issue since last year, told Cricinfo that the Zee TV bid was the highest, and that when the larger issue of long-term rights came up, the new committee on the BCCI would seek the highest bid and the best quality, part of an effort to make the board transparent.

"There were three bids that came in: Rs19.5 crores [US$4.24million] by Zee TV, US$4.1million by ESPN, and there was a Nimbus bid which I can't disclose because it was rejected on grounds of non-conformity," Modi said. "These are only for satellite rights. The earlier committee, Mr. Dalmiya's, had negotiated the rights with Doordarshan on a sharing of 80%-20% without a minimum guarantee and without any satellite [deal]. Doordarshan will continue to market their own rights, and the BCCI will receive 75% of that. That's a 5% reduction," he said, emphasising the figure. "So we've got Rs19.5 crores from Zee TV. That's the first point. Number two, they had negotiated a deal with TWI for $1.052 million for production. The new BCCI committee has been able to reduce that to $977,000, saving $77,000 for the BCCI. Number three, they had awarded the international rights for a revenue share of 80%-20% to Nimbus. We have been able to negotiate with Nimbus and bring them down to 85%-15%."

Modi said that the new working committee would take a call on how the tender process would go through. "I assume it'll put an end to infighting in the BCCI because the BCCI wants a totally transparent regime where the highest bidder wins."

But would a new tender be drafted? "We don't know if the same tender will apply or a fresh tender will have to be put out legally, but we would like everybody to be bidding. We want the highest revenue with the best quality service available to us. We will not restrict anybody from bidding."