MUMBAI: The Indian Premier League governing council has decided to table the proposal to change match timings for the forthcoming edition during the pre-auction workshop of all the franchise representatives here Thursday.
“The governing council will discuss the proposal in detail with all the franchises on Friday before taking a final call,” The Hindu quotes a source close to the developments as stating.
All through the first 10 seasons, the evening IPL games started at 8 pm, while the early games – whenever scheduled – used to commence at 4 pm. However, the IPL governing council, after receiving inputs from broadcast partner Star India, decided to schedule the evening games for 7 pm and start the early game of a double-header at 5.30 pm.
The Star India team have argued that overlap would increase prime-time viewership across its television and digital platforms.
If implemented, the franchises fear it could result in loss of revenues and eyeballs for all the teams. “The sponsorship deals for all the logos on our jersey are primarily based on the estimated TV viewership for the whole duration of the match. An overlap would (cut) into that aspect in a big way, especially since the double-headers are slotted over weekends and public holidays,” a franchise official told the daily. “I hope the franchises unite on this front on Friday and the BCCI takes our opinion into consideration before it makes up its mind.”
Not just the franchises, but even a section in the BCCI is averse to the idea of overlapping matches, fearing it could lead to reduction in central sponsorship revenue. “The central sponsorship agreements are usually based on calculations revolving an uninterrupted telecast of seven hours over the weekend. However, in the proposed system, the total duration of the broadcast may come down to five hours, which may fetch BCCI lower sums,” a BCCI official told The Hindu.
