The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had to take a drastic call to stop IPL 2021 midway amid the rising number of COVID19 cases among the players and support staff. The apex body could only host 29 matches and decided to postpone the tournament after reports of potential bio breaches emerged.
Though the Sourav Ganguly-led body decided to postpone the tournament for an indefinite time considering the safety of the people involved, it is expected to cost them a lot financially. BCCI will be losing almost half of broadcast and sponsorship money for stopping the league midway.
As per reports, BCCI will lose almost INR 2000 crores for stopping IPL 2021 midway. The biggest loss for the Indian board will be in the money they get from their official broadcasting partner, Star Sports. Star has signed a five-year contract where it is liable to pay INR 16,347 crore which equates to INR 3,269.4 crores per year.
BCCI to incur a massive loss for stopping IPL 2021
Every season witnesses almost 60 matches being played which means that Star Sports pays a stunning INR 54.5 crore to BCCI for every single match. Only 29 matches were played in IPL 2021 and this boils the equation down to Star paying just INR 1580 crores. This means a loss of Rs 1690 crore for the Board. Further, the title-sponsors VIVO, who are scheduled to pay INR 440 crores to BCCI for one IPL season, are likely to pay only half of the amount.
The same will be the case for other sponsors including Unacademy, Dream11, CRed, Upstox, and Tata Motors, who pay in the range of Rs 120 crore each. Some subsidiary sponsors are also there in the line.
“We would be losing anything between Rs 2000 to Rs 2500 crore for the midway postponement of this season. I would say something in the range of Rs 2200 crore will be closer to accurate estimation,” a senior BCCI official as quoted by the Times of India. on conditions of anonymity.
“Slash all the payments by half or a bit less and you will be reaching a loss in the range of 2200 crore. The actual losses could be much more but this is a back of the hand calculation for the season,” the official added.
Along with BCCI, all the eight franchises are also expected to make some losses in the wake of IPL 2021 getting halted midway.