BCCI scraps broadcast deal with Nimbus

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has scrapped its contract with broadcast rights holder Nimbus for defaulting on payments, and forfeited the bank guarantee amount of Rs 2,000 crore.

The decision to terminate Nimbus's contract, three years before its expiry, was taken at the BCCI's emergent working committee meeting, on Monday, where members were "unanimous" in scrapping the telecast deal for India's home series matches.

"Members were unanimous that such an organisation which has been a regular defaulter in terms of payments cannot be continued with," one of the members of the working committee said, on condition of anonymity.

Nimbus, which had signed a four-year deal with the BCCI in October 2009 for a whopping Rs 2000 crore, paid Rs 24 crore ahead of the working committee meeting but there was still an outstanding amount of Rs 88 crore.

"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.

Since there was a big gap before the next home series gets underway, the BCCI top brass felt that there is enough time to find a new broadcaster.

The termination of the Nimbus deal means that the rest of the domestic season will not be televised.

It was also learnt that the working committee members were unhappy about World Series Hockey (WSH) being promoted in the air time scheduled for cricket.

"They were bringing hockey players during the breaks of the cricket matches and forcing commentators Sanjay Manjrekar and Courtney Walsh to ask questions with the hockey players.

"The break-time show was supposed to be solely dedicated to cricket," the official said.

As per the contract, Nimbus had to pay an approximate amount of Rs 31.5 crore per game to the BCCI.

Apart from the current payment, the BCCI and Nimbus also had a long-pending 'issue' over radio rights. Nimbus was not happy with the All India Radio's offer and had asked the BCCI to deal with them directly.

When contacted, Yannick Colaco, COO, Nimbus Sport, said he is not yet aware of any such development.