The newly elected Indian cricket board officials Thursday decided to cancel the match telecast rights tender floated by the previous regime and would invite fresh offers.


This was one of the several decisions announced by the marketing committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), headed by its president Sharad Pawar, who is also the Union Agriculture Minister.

"The committee was of the view that we should approach the court to cancel the current tender and put up a fresh tender with new terms shortly," BCCI vice president Lalit Modi, also a member of the committee, told reporters here.

"The BCCI is looking at generating more revenue and has identified new areas where this can be tapped. We are looking at a broader spectrum and we feel some elements could be unbundled from the bid and sold separately."

He said fresh tenders for team sponsorship would be invited Monday and the bids would be opened Dec 19. This follows the expiry of the present sponsor Sahara's agreement with the BCCI.

In a bid to consolidate its revenue through cricket, the marketing committee had decided to take an aggressive look at potential areas of growth, Modi said.

This would include a single sponsor for the team for all matches apart from separate sponsors for the Champions Trophy and the World Cup.

"We will have separate team sponsors for the Champions Trophy and the World Cup to avoid a conflict of interests with the companies which are the existing official partners of the ICC (International Cricket Council)," Modi said.

The BCCI will be adding value to its portfolio of marketable properties by creating a position of an official kit supplier to the Indian team. A separate bid would be invited in the coming week from potential kit suppliers and apparel licensees, he said.

Such sponsors would get visibility on the non-leading arm of players' shirts while the official team sponsors would continue to have their logos on the chest and the leading arm of the team shirts.

As regards the broadcast rights, the BCCI would honour the union cabinet's decision to share live feeds with public broadcaster Doordarshan, which will continue to have terrestrial rights for tournaments held in India.

Satellite and cable rights and DTH (Direct to Home) rights would be sold separately, Modi said.

All India Radio would get non-exclusive radio broadcast rights, which would also be sold separately for each city to FM (frequency modulation) radio channels.

The rights for voice-over-IP (Internet Protocol) and radio telephony will be given on a tour-to-tour basis keeping in view the exponential growth expected in these mediums, Modi said.

Broadband rights would be sold on a revenue sharing basis while rights would also be divided between territories while the BCCI would also set up its own portal.

Telephony along with cricket DVDs (digital video discs), VCDs (video compact discs) and gaming CD-ROMs were being considered as potential areas for generating revenue.

Also on the anvil are plans for official rights, including official timekeeper, official airline, official hotel, official ground transporter, official sponsor of Man of the Match and Man of the Series awards, official media partner and official travel partner.

The Indian cricket board sees a large opportunity to create a variety of branded goods including apparel, accessories, cricketing gear, cricketing equipment and novelty items that would be sold through both exclusive and non exclusive outlets.