Multi Screen Media, the broadcast rights holder of the Indian Premier League, will have to pay an additional sum of over Rs 190 crore to the BCCI for the fourth season of the T20 cricket tournament as the number of matches has gone up.
On Sunday, the BBCI had announced that the fourth edition of the tournament will have a total of 74 matches, as against 60 earlier, with two new teams, Kochi and Pune, becoming a a part of the series.
"A new contract has been signed by the two parties according to which MSM will pay extra money to BCCI on a pro-rata basis for the additional 14 matches to be played during IPL 4," BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan told PTI.
The development was also confirmed by MSM President (Network Sales) Rohit Gupta, but he declined to share details.
Multi Screen Media (MSM), along with World Sports Group, had signed a deal with BCCI in 2007 for Rs 8,200 crore to get the broadcasting rights to IPL until 2017.
On the basis of the total fee of Rs 8,200 crore for a period of 10 years for 600 matches, MSM is estimated to pay over Rs 13 crore per match. For the 14 extra matches in IPL 4, the additional sum that MSM needs to shell out comes to over Rs 190 crore.
However, in June this year, a new deal was renegotiated between the BCCI and MSM which kept WSG out of the broadcast deal after the cricket control body uncovered alleged financial irregularities in the award of contract by ex-IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi in the form of payment of a facilitation fee of Rs 425 crore.
"Even though WSG is out of the equation, BCCI will still get the committed amount of Rs 8,200 crore from the broadcaster and MSM will have to pay for the additional matches," Mindshare Managing Partner (entertainment sports partnerships) Hiren Pandit said.
He said in order to recover the additional outgo, MSM is likely to design different packages for advertisers and also increase the rates for sponsorship.
IPL matches are shown live on MSM's channel, Set Max.
