Loss is the last word you would associate with the ongoing India-Pakistan series, especially if you answer to the name of Abdul Rehman Bukhatir.
Bukhatir is the man who took cricket to the Middle East and created the Sharjah spectacle in the early eighties. Today he is in a quandary with his latest venture, TEN Sports.
With the Pakistan Cricket Board raking in close to $22 million in sponsorship titles and television rights, the series was supposed to be the big ticket for TEN Sports. But the television channel, which owns the exclusive rights for India-Pakistan series, is bleeding because of a directive from the Supreme Court of India to provide the live telecast feed of the matches to India's national channel, Doordarshan.
"The television rights row is sub judice so I cannot really say much except that we are incurring a loss with this Indo-Pak series," he told rediff.com in Lahore.
Bukhatir argued that providing a signal to any other television channel is an infringement on his company's copyrights.
"We own the rights of the series. No one can take our rights away from us. After the PIL (Public Interest Litigation) we have given the signal to DD but we are waiting for the ruling," he added.
He pointed out that with cable operators switching off TEN Sports in India, TEN Sports is facing huge losses "because everyone is watching the Indo-Pak cricket on Doordarshan".
"We live on conception and with cable operators switching us off we can't market advertisements. The losses are huge," he said.
Refusing to reveal figures, Bukhatir said his channel is unable to recover costs despite getting exclusive rights to cover various sports.
"We did not charge much for the 2002 soccer World Cup. Even now we are showing the England-West Indies series and also the Australia-Sri Lanka series, but who is watching? I don't understand; what's the point?"
Bukhatir informed that his channel would bid for the India rights, which will be up for grabs later this year.
"We are a sports channel and we will bid for the Asia Cup India rights and all other cricket tours and tournaments," he said.
He denied making any request to the Indian government to allow the team to play in Sharjah.
"The government needs to first lift the ban on playing in Sharjah," he said.
Claimed the ICC had given a clean chit to Sharjah vis-a-vis allegations of match-fixing, he emphatically stated that no game is fixed at the venue.
"We saw that games are fixed between players and bookies. We also know that matches have been fixed in Pakistan, India and South Africa. We knew betting was all over, so why pick on Sharjah?" he asked.
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