BCCI incurs massive television losses

The secretary of the BCCI has disclosed that the board has already lost US$34million since the Australian series began, through the ongoing television-rights imbroglio. The matter has been in court since October 2004, when two behemoth television channels had a standoff with the Indian board over the awarding of the rights, and had threatened the start of the Australian tour of India, but the BCCI managed to save the series by reaching a hasty agreement with Doordarshan, the state-run TV channel.

In another development, the Chennai High Court heard Zee TV's arguments today and asked the board to respond by tomorrow. The probable decision to delay the Pakistan series by a few days would give the embattled board some breathing space, but television-industry observers opined that the issue was still unlikely to be resolved before the series begins.

The Press Trust of India quoted a letter from SK Nair, the secretary of the board, that if the rights had been awarded, instead of a temporary deal with Doordarshan, "Doordarshan would be paying Rs 100 crore [$30million] for the terrestrial rights of the matches against Australia and South Africa and another Rs 30 crore is expected from the sale of overseas rights [for each series].

"Therefore, if we assume that Rs 275 crore [$63million] would have come from these two series if the four-year deal was through, the ad hoc arrangement has fetched approximately Rs 130 crore and the loss was say Rs 150 crore [$34million]."

Significantly, if the board is unable to resolve the rights case and award them either to ESPN-Star or Zee TV - the largest bidders before their bids were cancelled by Jagmohan Dalmiya - the Pakistan series is also likely to be telecast by Doordarshan, which would mean a further loss of revenue for the board. Since a series with Pakistan is a potential huge money-spinner, the amount likely to be lost is a significant portion of the $308million the board would have earned from a four-year deal with either ESPN-Star or Zee.