Red Chillies-CAB strike ticket-sharing deal

Kolkata's Eden Gardens, one of the world's largest cricket venues, will finally get to be part of the IPL party, with the Cricket Association of Bengal [CAB] and Red Chillies Entertainment, the company which owns the local franchise Kolkata Knightriders, striking a compromise deal on ticket-sharing.

The deal, apparently, involves giving more club house tickets to the CAB while sticking to the IPL formula of 80% of the tickets for the franchise, owned by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and 20% for the host association.

Red Chillies will now give the CAB over 1000 high-value tickets for the club house, instead of the 650 allotted earlier. And the CAB, in return, will give up 8000 of the 17,000 tickets that they would have got under the 80-20 formula. CAB members will also get general tickets at a discount.

The problem had cropped up after a dissident faction within the CAB demanded more tickets from Red Chillies, and claimed that the 80-20 formula wouldn't work in Eden Gardens, which is the biggest IPL venue, accommodating 90,000 spectators. Even now, the 'dissidents' are "not entirely satisfied" with the compromise but have agreed in the "larger interests of the game".