The Indian Parliament had passed the act long back where events of national importance will have a clean feed(Means no logos or ads of the original rights holder) for Prasar Bharti and Prasar Bharti will then share the revenue generated from that feed(Prasar Bharti can generate revenue by selling its own ad spots etc) with the original rights holder.This law has been in force for sometime and Supreme court only upheld its constitutional validity of a section 3 of the sports act passed in 2007.
Next time please provide complete info.
Correct.
Star India has been obstructing this for years. Because it massively reduces the value of its rights, because viewers can watch those matches without subscribing to their channels.
And now we are going to see the revised value of Indian TV rights. Just like Scottish football tanked when Setanta went bankrupt and the English Championship has taken years to recover from the same event.
Sky UK would not pay billions for EPL rights if BBC1 and ITV were allowed to carry those matches and only had to reimburse Sky a proportion of their advertising revenue rather than a proportion of the cost of rights acquisition.
I am actually a keen student of TV sports rights, and the Indian market is fascinating but very unstable, because it depends totally upon:
1. Whether this ruling is finally going to be implemented, and
2. Which matches are defined as being of national importance.
In the worst case scenario for the rest of the world, only ICC events are classified as of "national importance" and India chooses to depart international cricket and concentrate on private domestic leagues such as the IPL. (Many of us wonder whether that is also the best case scenario for the rest of us).
The Indian market in both football and cricket has one unique characteristic that subsequently got aped by other T20 leagues.
There isn't enough money in the Indian TV rights for a 40 week season at high wages comparable to an international football league. There is only enough money to pay for 8-10 weeks at those wage levels.
And there is uncertainty whether making IPL a 40 week per year enterprise would reduce the value of advertising slots, just as having 40 Superbowls per year would reduce the value of Superbowl ad slots.
I'm happy to give Manohar the benefit of the doubt, because he impresses me as a man of integrity.
But to be honest India has no decent bowlers and I wouldn't miss them if they left international cricket. So I half-hope that India does decide to exit the international cricket structure, as Srinivasan kept threatening to do, and moves to a 40 week IPL structure.
If you take the example of Australia, I think we would lose Smith and Starc in around 5 years from now and Warner when he turns 30 in four months time. But the only players under 30 who would abandon national representative cricket for private leagues would be the ones who weren't assured of a place in the team, like Maxwell or Faulkner.
New Zealand would be just the same. Guptill and McCullum would go, but no other established internationals under the age of 30 would.
I think it could be good for India and good for the rest of us. It saddens me on one level, but seems like an improvement on what we have had in recent years.
