BCCI terminates Nimbus TV rights deal

The working committee meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has taken a tough stand by terminating the contract with its broadcast rights holder Nimbus for defaulting on payments. They have also announced that they encash the bank guarantee amount of Rs 2,000 crore.

N Srinivasan

"It was a unanimous decision to terminate the contract. We thought that such an organisation which has been a regular defaulter in terms of payments cannot be continued with," a senior board member said yesterday.

Nimbus had signed a four-year deal with the BCCI in October 2009 which was run till 2014 for Rs 2000 crore.
Though they had made a payment of 24 crore yesterday, still Rs 88 crore was outstanding. "Not a single series has gone where they have paid the full amount on time. Also another reason is that India's international commitments at home have finished with the ODI series against the West Indies," the official said.

The result of this termination would not affect India matches as India will tour Australia till March and there's Indian Premier League (IPL) in April. But domestic cricket will suffer. The ongoing Ranji Trophy matches will not be telecast hereafter which means the semi-finals and final of the premier competition will not be shown on television. "Yes Ranji Trophy will duffer, but can't help it. We had to take such a step to deal with such defaulters," the official said.

Going by the contract, Nimbus had to pay an nearly Rs 31.5 crore per match to the BCCI. Besides the current payment issue, the BCCI and Nimbus were also having a long-pending fight over radio rights. Nimbus was not happy with the All India Radio's offer and had asked the BCCI to deal with them directly.