BCCI TV deal and UK after-effects

Nimbus has bagged the global media rights for Indian cricket for the next 4 years (till Mar 2010) for an unbelievable sum of 612 million $. This article neatly gives us all the gory details.

This deal clearly shows market forces at work (well, mostly). A bidding war was engineered by the BCCI with 'transparency' the buzz word - ensuring that all bidders had to up their bids in the fear that they could very easily screw up their entire business model for the country if they lost! The fear of losing was perhaps just as important as the price of winning. I expected Zee to win the bid, but now that Nimbus has the rights, expect them to sell it piece-by-piece to Zee to start with, and perhaps launch their own channel down the line. In fact, HarishThawani has gone on record saying that all options are open.

Here in the UK, the cat has truly been set among the pigeons, with Sky's so-called monopoly for overseas England tours under serious threat. It looks very likely that Zee/Sony/Ary will bag the rights. Thankfully the BBC Radio deal seems to be proceeding smoothly, with TMS agreeing to pay 1.7 million $ (1 mill GBP) for the series. Thawani has stated that they will grant highlights to either Channel 4 or Five, thereby satisfying the terrestrial lobby. If Sky do lose out, this will be the first time in many years that they are not telecasting a major live cricket series. Unless Sky dig deeper into their substantial pockets and cough up the moolah, my money is on Zee picking up the rights in the UK by paying some incremental money over and above the India rights.