MUMBAI: The best possible deal that addresses the concerns of players, the Indian cricket board and the ten franchises. That’s what has been delivered as far as the Indian Premier League’s new 74-game formula, effective from season IV, is concerned.
Even host broadcaster MSM aka Sony Entertainment will have come away from all this more than satisfied. Because purely looking from the financials, both its top and bottomlines will be far more manageable as regards its payment commitments than what may have been the case if the IPL governing council had gone ahead with the original 94 match plan that former head honcho Lalit Modi had envisaged for cricket’s biggest blockbuster.
How do the numbers pan out? At a basic level, what is clear is that the reduction in the number of matches from 94 to 74 means the BCCI will get 21 per cent less as far as broadcast rights fees from MSM are concerned. Reason: Payments are calculated on the number of games played.
In IPL III MSM paid the board Rs 3.35 billion ($ 72 million) for the 60 games played or Rs 55.8 million calculated on a per game. Conversations SportzPower has had with industry sources indicate that there is a 15 per cent or thereabouts increase y-o-y built in to the revised broadcast rights agreement. MSM’s per game payment commitment for IPL IV therefore is Rs 64.2 million or Rs 4.75 billion in all.
Even the franchises will have to admit that this is the best possible arrangement keeping the interests of all the stakeholders in mind. The new two-group formula that has been envisaged ensures that the minimum number of games each IPL team plays per season remains 14, as has been the case thus far.
There will be one league table with teams divided into 2 groups of 5 teams each. The format will be that each team would play the other four teams in its group twice – home and away, four of the five teams in the other group once – home or away, and one of the five teams in the other group twice – home and away.
From a financial perspective as well the franchises have been protected. The central pool monies that the franchises will get out of the Rs 4.75 billion that comes from MSM is 3.8 billion (80 per cent of the total). Each team will therefore get Rs 380 million, up from the Rs 335 million they were guaranteed last year, which still works out to a 13.4 per cent revenue increase y-o-y.
Of course as far as the two new franchises – Pune and Kochi – are concerned, it will mean a complete recalibration of the financial calculations they had made when they bid $ 370 million and $ 333.33 million respectively for the two new teams that have been added to the league.
As for the players, the number of games they will have to play has not increased, so fears of burnout and exhaustion have also been assuaged since the balance between purely sporting and commercial requirements have been safeguarded.
What this has ensured is that the lure of the lucre has not been allowed to compromise the quality of competitive play, which is what the long term future of any sporting property ultimately rests on.
