The Bangladesh Cricket Board failed to attract too many companies to buy its television broadcast and marketing rights and extended time for purchasing the tender schedule for another seven days in the hope of roping in few more interested clients.
The last date of buying the schedule for the TV rights ended on August 31 and it was learnt through sources that only two companies had so far showed their interest in buying the bid papers.
The BCB will be inking a TV deal from November 1, 2012 to April 30, 2016 after their contentious six-year agreement with the international marketing agency Nimbus ends on March 2012.
‘We had extended time for buying the schedule until September 6 and the last date for dropping the tender would be August 12,’ said Nizamuddin Chowdhury, acting chief executive officer of the BCB.
Nimbus, the international marketing agency which brought the TV rights, has been disqualified for bidding after BCB had added a clause in their schedule that any companies having a financial dispute with the board are ineligible for taking part in the tender process.
The Board had already initiated a legal action against Nimbus by going for arbitration as the company used various loopholes in the agreement to avoid making any payment to the BCB for the rights that they earned for a staggering $56.88 million in October 2006.
It was learnt that Ten Sports and Indian Sports Event licensing company Sporty Solutionz only bought the tender documents. Of the two Sporty Solutionz was in charge of international broadcasting of the Bangladesh Premier League.
The same company also telecast the recently-held Sri Lankan Premier League. Both BPL and SLPL were internationally broadcast on ESPN-Star SPORTS among other channels.
The BCB faces a race against time to ink the new TV deal as they have the home series against the West Indies looming closr. If they are unable to sign a deal before the West Indies series, they have to bear the production cost for the series, which officials said would be no less than $2 million.
BCB president AHM Mustafa Kamal believed a clause in the tender schedule, that stipulates that only companies with five years experience can buy the bid papers, has made several companies ineligible for participation in the bidding.
‘I hope to change the clause in the next board meeting on August 3. I feel that we could have got more companies if it was not included.
‘I would prefer to replace it with “companies having reasonable experience”. If that be the case a lot of interested parties even from our country could have participated in the bidding,’ said Kamal.
‘I was sick and was not able to go through the details of the document when it was prepared or else I would have done it earlier,’ said Kamal.
Courtesy of New Age
