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MUMBAI:
Exit Zee, enter Nimbus. Harish Thawani's Nimbus Communications
has bagged the telecast rights for the four cricket one-day
internationals to be played by India in Ireland in June.
The
joint announcement made today by the Board of Control for
Cricket in India (BCCI) and Nimbus, comes a day after Subhash
Chandra's Zee Group pulled out of its five-year contract with
the Indian cricket board covering India's matches at neutral
venues, accusing it of following a double standards approach.
Nimbus
will pay $ 6.05 million per match for the series that is to
be played from June 26 to July 1, Cricket Board (BCCI) Vice
President Lalit Modi announced. "Nimbus has come back
and accepted the offer of the BCCI and agreed to telecast
the next few matches which are going to be held in Ireland
and Scotland this year. The contracted amount is $ 6.05 million
per match," Modi said. The series involves three ODIs
against South Africa and another against Ireland in Belfast.
Speaking
to the media yesterday, Zee senior vice-president Ashish Kaul
had said: "We have scrapped our deal with BCCI for offshore
cricket. The rights were given to us on an exclusive basis
but the must carry clause introduced later means that we have
to share the feed with Doordarshan. We had approached BCCI
for a price correction many weeks back but the board has not
even acknowledged our concerns. We believe Neo Sports is being
given a price correction (for its India cricket rights fee)
on the same grounds."
Interestingly,
what Nimbus has agreed to pay the board per match for the
rights it has just acquired is a huge come down from the average
of $ 8.77 million per match that Zee had committed to pay
for the same property.
It
was in April 2006 that Zee secured the rights for matches
played by India at neutral venues (non-ICC member countries).
And the winning bid: a whopping $219.15 million for 25 matches
spread over five years.
Nimbus
also defended its pullout from the Afro-Asia Cup series, which
will now be aired on rival ESPN Star Sports. Said Thawani,
I think the Afro-Asia cup has become a mockery. You can't
have an Asian side - no Sachin (Tendulkar), no Rahul (Dravid),
no (Anil) Kumble, no Shoaib Akhtar, no Murali, no Chaminda
Vaas, no Sangakarra, no Malinga. And in the 20-20 side, one
Indian player Sreesanth who struggles to find a place in the
one-day side, fine player that he might be."
The
Asian Cricket Council announced today that it has scrapped
its deal with Nimbus to telecast the upcoming Afro-Asia Cup
for non-fulfilment of contractual obligations.
ESPN
Star Sports (ESS) has bagged the rights on a revenue share
arrangement. According to information available with Indiantelevision.com,
ACC will take away 80 per cent of the revenue generated while
ESS will keep 20 per cent. ESS will also bear the production
costs of the live feed.
ACC
had earlier awarded the three-year contract worth $11 million
to Nimbus.
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