LAHORE: Franchises in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) have asked for a bigger share in revenues generated by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) from the sale of title, media and other rights, Press Trust of India reports.
Nadeem Omar, the owner of the Quetta Gladiators franchise in the competition, held a meeting with PCB chairman Ehsan Mani last week. Followed by which, Omar said that the board needed to help all the five franchises at present, which are an integral part of the league, to recover their losses after the first three seasons of the league.
“We have sent a letter to the PCB suggesting that they increase the share of the franchises in the revenues generated by sale of media, title and other rights and decrease their percentage of share,” Omar was quoted as saying to PTI.
“Let us see what the PCB does but we are expecting them to generate good revenues from the fresh sale of media, title and other rights now before the season four,” he said.
The PCB has already sold the title rights again to HBL (Habib Bank) for PKR 1.5 billion ($11.6 million), a 33% jump from the previous value of 1 billion PKR ($7.45 million) as per the new agreement. The board is also in the process of renegotiating the sale of their sixth franchise after they terminated their agreement with Multan Sultans last week over payment issues.
According to Mani, three corporate houses have already shown interest in buying the sixth franchise afresh and on Wednesday Abdul Karim Dedi, a top Memon businessman offered an initial bid of $3 million after his meeting with the chairman.
Mani reiterated that until the sixth franchise was sold again, the PCB would continue to take full responsibility for all players and coach contracts.
“Till a fresh bid is accepted the PCB will be responsible for the sixth franchise until it is renamed by a new owner,” the PCB chairman said.
He also made it clear that the PSL 4 would go ahead with six franchises even if the new bidding process for the sixth franchise is not completed before the start of the fourth edition of the league on 14 February 2019.
