COLOMBO: Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), which is currently wallowing in a mess of its own making in regards to the national team’s next cycle of media rights, is hanging on a hope and a prayer that “big daddy” BCCI confirms a “later date” for India’s limited overs tour that was scheduled for June.
On that confirmation rests SLC’s hopes of extracting “worthwhile” value for the Invitation to Tender (ITT) it issued last week for three-year media rights effective from April 1, 2020.
It needs noting that SLC was hoping for a massive payday from the Indian team’s six limited-over tour (3 ODIs and 3 T20Is), which was scheduled to kick off from June 21 this year, but has got upended owing to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
SLC last week dispatched ITT documents to all potential bidders, but left the bid submission date open until India’s limited-over tour to the Emerald Isles is finalised, Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times reported.
Negotiations are on with the Indian cricket board to shift the tour to a later date, SLC said.
“Due to the COVID-19 crisis and the lockdowns and curfews currently being experienced in Sri Lanka as well as overseas, the offer submission date will be notified in due course,” SLC wrote in its covering note.
“SLC will keep the Bidders informed of the updated tour schedule and the Bid submission date and time by 15 May 2020.”
SLC is selling media rights for the next three years after their seven-year agreement with Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) ended on March 31.
The new cricket cycle, which includes 12 international tours, was to kick-off with South Africa’s tour of Sri Lanka in May/June this year but the tour has been rescheduled for November 2021.
SLC awarded the production rights for the next three years to Innovative Product Group (IPG) headed by Dubai-based Anil Mohan, following a successful bid they made in February but was forced to retender their media rights (TV/Radio and Digital Broadcast rights) following unsatisfactory offers.
Unlike in previous years, SLC floated three separate tenders for TV and radio broadcast rights, TV production rights and digital broadcast rights. This is the first time SLC floated digital rights separately.
This decision cost SLC dearly. Apart from the lack of transparency, another concern of SPN, which withdrew from the bid process, was the separation of digital rights from TV/ Radio broadcasting rights.
The bifurcation of rights – TV/Radio and Digital Rights – resulted in SLC receiving below par offers with the highest bid for TV/Radio rights of $16 million and digital rights fetching only $6 million.
Forced to eat humble pie, SLC’s revised ITT norms offer a combined bid process for television, radio and digital rights.
For the record, it is worth noting what was SPN’s response to SLC earlier ITT.
“We find assurances given by you belie the clarifications that SLC provided to our queries, unless SLC amended its responses to reflect the transparency in the bidding process that you have touted and addressed the glaring concerns that we had raised, SLC’s responses to our queries confirm gaping holes in the entire bidding process,” stated a letter addressed to SLC CEO, Ashley de Silva, signed by SPN’s general counsel Ashok Mambissan.
“It has come to our attention that SLC has selectively invited potential bidders to the opening of the bids on 21 February 2020 while no such invitation was extended to us, the incumbent media rights holder of SLC. This underlines the opaqueness of the bidding process undertaken by SIC,” stated the letter.
“SLC has completely ignored the way the global sports broadcasters undertake sports broadcasting business. To exclude the redistribution of linear feeds of the sports channels on the OTT media platform together with complete exclusion of territory of Sri Lanka from the award of the rights, knowing fully that the Indian feeds of the sports channels get distributed in Sri Lanka, is perplexing: To have unbridled ground sponsorship right.
“Reserved to block successful bidder to appoint its sponsors in the competing products and services categories of SLC’s sponsors afford no certainty to potential bidders on recoupment of their investment. This kind of structuring of ITT is unprecedented in our firm view,” the letter stated.
Sony had gone on to show their disapproval after being broadcasting partner to Sri Lanka Cricket for a long time, having secured a seven-year deal in 2013 during the last broadcasting cycle.
“After having worked tirelessly to help SLC grow in the popularity of the sport and help build and groom local production talent in Sri Lanka over many years, we find it utterly disappointing that SLC has grossly failed to address genuine concerns brought to its attention repeatedly.”
