In terminating its contract with Nimbus Communications, the rights holders for all cricket in India (international and domestic), with three years still to go, the cricket board seeks to emphasise that it alone rules the way the sport is run and projected in this country. While the BCCI is yet to make an official announcement, the reason apparently is that Nimbus had repeatedly defaulted on its payments, including upto 50 per cent of the promised amount ahead of the recent England and West Indies series in India.
Another reason apparently is that the rights holder used the cricket platform to push its “breakaway” World Series Hockey at the intermission shows during the ODIs against the West Indies. There were deeper issues involved too: thanks to disputes over guarantee payments for overseas uplinks by Nimbus to Prasar Bharati, the telecast of one recent game was considerably delayed. This in turn is linked to an earlier dispute over sharing of live feed and access to state-run radio, due to which All India Radio has not broadcast live Test match commentaries for some time now. As an offshoot of the cancellation of the Nimbus deal — worth around `2,000 crores, covering 64 international games and 312 days of domestic cricket — the BCCI has also laid claim to the bank guarantee of a like amount Nimbus had to deposit while signing the contract. Clearly, as far as the cricket czars are concerned, the bottomline is that money in the bank talks louder than guarantee amounts.